Pearl Zhu's Blog, page 1455
February 16, 2015
Critical Thinking & Critical Thinker
Critical thinking has been described as “thinking about thinking."
Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness.
Critical thinking has been described as “thinking about thinking.” There is a certain level of growing impatience in the world today that results in critical thinkers as being anti new ideas. This is not true, the agile critical thinking has the potential to have creativity as the the deep thinking process, to think in alternative way and discover the new way to do things. Since critical thinking can save one from making sometimes serious mistakes. It has also been described as "thinking about thinking." Critical thinking has been described as “reasonable reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do.” Rejecting ideas without first applying critical thought is not a good thing either. If human society behaved like this we would be probably still rooted in the dark ages.
Critical thinkers are neither critical nor judgmental: More recently, critical thinking has been described as the process of purposeful, self-regulatory judgment, which uses reasoned consideration to evidence, context, conceptualizations, methods, and criteria. Within the critical social theory and philosophical frame, critical thinking is commonly understood to involve commitment to the social and political practice of participatory democracy, willingness to imagine or remain open to considering alternative perspectives, willingness to integrate new or revised perspectives into our ways of thinking and acting, and willingness to foster criticality in others. However, the critical thinkers are neither critical nor judgmental; as thought leaders, they apply critical thinking in identifying gaps, problem solving and seeing things differently.
Critical thinking is crucial for dealing with uncertainty and complexity of today’s digital dynamic, and doing things we never done before, but doing them right; it also helps to challenge the conventional wisdom, to continually push the world forward.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness.
Critical thinking has been described as “thinking about thinking.” There is a certain level of growing impatience in the world today that results in critical thinkers as being anti new ideas. This is not true, the agile critical thinking has the potential to have creativity as the the deep thinking process, to think in alternative way and discover the new way to do things. Since critical thinking can save one from making sometimes serious mistakes. It has also been described as "thinking about thinking." Critical thinking has been described as “reasonable reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do.” Rejecting ideas without first applying critical thought is not a good thing either. If human society behaved like this we would be probably still rooted in the dark ages.
Critical thinkers are neither critical nor judgmental: More recently, critical thinking has been described as the process of purposeful, self-regulatory judgment, which uses reasoned consideration to evidence, context, conceptualizations, methods, and criteria. Within the critical social theory and philosophical frame, critical thinking is commonly understood to involve commitment to the social and political practice of participatory democracy, willingness to imagine or remain open to considering alternative perspectives, willingness to integrate new or revised perspectives into our ways of thinking and acting, and willingness to foster criticality in others. However, the critical thinkers are neither critical nor judgmental; as thought leaders, they apply critical thinking in identifying gaps, problem solving and seeing things differently.
Critical thinking is crucial for dealing with uncertainty and complexity of today’s digital dynamic, and doing things we never done before, but doing them right; it also helps to challenge the conventional wisdom, to continually push the world forward.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
February 15, 2015
Digital Master Tuning XXXX: How to Groom Business-Focused IT Leaders
Business-focused digital IT leaders need to be more audacious to encourage innovation; take advantage of the emerging digital technologies, equipped with the agile mindset, and focus on building business capabilities.
As businesses reach the inflection point of digital transformation, IT becomes integral part of business, or put simply, IT is business. However, traditional IT leaders have a distinct technology/tool/process focus, lack of business acumen or insight, What are the top traits of digital IT leaders, and how to develop business-focused IT management team?
Business-focused IT leaders/managers need to become T-shape professionals: The challenge any business-centric IT executive faces is that many of those who are promoted or come into management have only technical background or experience. The critical part - both through coaching them and through his/her direct input - is to move them into a conceptual understanding of the business as a whole. It doesn't mean IT leaders/manager should forget their technical expertise, but means they need to broaden their skillset, to become T-shape professionals.
IT leaders/managers need to focus on People, Process and Technology with the proper order. It has to do with the individual leader's desire to be an authentic leader, rather than just the leader of the work. How a leader's individual team members contribute to the organization through the work they do, how they evolve in their careers within the organization, or how they address performance issues to help an employee "turn around" or "turn out (leave)" is something that isn't typically an evaluative measure for most leaders. Employees are the most valuable resource organizations have. Supervisors get work done through their subordinates and yet, how much time do they actually spend with those individuals? Until leaders recognize they need to get out from behind their desks, engage people, observe, ask questions, coach and delegate, an effective performance management system is a pipe dream.
Business-focused IT leaders needs to become change agent of their business: Every IT project is business project, it should bring the positive change for their business. IT needs to become the business enabler, not just controller or even obstacle for business making things done. Business-focused IT leaders need to focus on advocating their business as a whole, not just their IT division. Just like any type of sales, IT needs to sell their services and solutions by determining their wants/needs and tailoring a presentation to convince business users of the solution; know how to implement the organizational changes needed, at least at some level, cascading down. Hence IT leaders are change agent for their business, not just for IT.
Business-focused IT leaders engage their staff for unleashing potentials. The "old notion" is that if you have ten staff in the same position, that they should be expected to do the same things, and be evaluated in the same way. The modern workplace doesn't work like that. Each person, even in the same job, ends up doing somewhat different things, because they bring their unique strengths to the job. So, people in the same position often do quite different things, with different strengh, and should be rewarded and recognized for their unique contributions.
Compared to traditional IT managers who focused on infrastructure, building IT project from scratch, running IT as a service desk/back office function; business-focused digital IT leaders need to be more audacious to encourage innovation; take advantage of the emerging digital technologies, such as Cloud/social/mobile/analytics, equipped with the agile mindset -Change over document, people over process, built for change, focus on building business capabilities, and significantly improve IT maturity & overall organizational capabilities.
Digitalization is like a flywheel, and Digital Masters are the one riding above it. Surf more Information about Digital Master:
Digital Master Kindle Version Book Order URL
Digital Master Introduction URL
Digital Master Author URL
Digital Master Video Clip on YouTube
Digital Master Fun Quiz
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
As businesses reach the inflection point of digital transformation, IT becomes integral part of business, or put simply, IT is business. However, traditional IT leaders have a distinct technology/tool/process focus, lack of business acumen or insight, What are the top traits of digital IT leaders, and how to develop business-focused IT management team?
Business-focused IT leaders/managers need to become T-shape professionals: The challenge any business-centric IT executive faces is that many of those who are promoted or come into management have only technical background or experience. The critical part - both through coaching them and through his/her direct input - is to move them into a conceptual understanding of the business as a whole. It doesn't mean IT leaders/manager should forget their technical expertise, but means they need to broaden their skillset, to become T-shape professionals.
IT leaders/managers need to focus on People, Process and Technology with the proper order. It has to do with the individual leader's desire to be an authentic leader, rather than just the leader of the work. How a leader's individual team members contribute to the organization through the work they do, how they evolve in their careers within the organization, or how they address performance issues to help an employee "turn around" or "turn out (leave)" is something that isn't typically an evaluative measure for most leaders. Employees are the most valuable resource organizations have. Supervisors get work done through their subordinates and yet, how much time do they actually spend with those individuals? Until leaders recognize they need to get out from behind their desks, engage people, observe, ask questions, coach and delegate, an effective performance management system is a pipe dream.
Business-focused IT leaders needs to become change agent of their business: Every IT project is business project, it should bring the positive change for their business. IT needs to become the business enabler, not just controller or even obstacle for business making things done. Business-focused IT leaders need to focus on advocating their business as a whole, not just their IT division. Just like any type of sales, IT needs to sell their services and solutions by determining their wants/needs and tailoring a presentation to convince business users of the solution; know how to implement the organizational changes needed, at least at some level, cascading down. Hence IT leaders are change agent for their business, not just for IT.
Business-focused IT leaders engage their staff for unleashing potentials. The "old notion" is that if you have ten staff in the same position, that they should be expected to do the same things, and be evaluated in the same way. The modern workplace doesn't work like that. Each person, even in the same job, ends up doing somewhat different things, because they bring their unique strengths to the job. So, people in the same position often do quite different things, with different strengh, and should be rewarded and recognized for their unique contributions.
Compared to traditional IT managers who focused on infrastructure, building IT project from scratch, running IT as a service desk/back office function; business-focused digital IT leaders need to be more audacious to encourage innovation; take advantage of the emerging digital technologies, such as Cloud/social/mobile/analytics, equipped with the agile mindset -Change over document, people over process, built for change, focus on building business capabilities, and significantly improve IT maturity & overall organizational capabilities.
Digitalization is like a flywheel, and Digital Masters are the one riding above it. Surf more Information about Digital Master:
Digital Master Kindle Version Book Order URL
Digital Master Introduction URL
Digital Master Author URL
Digital Master Video Clip on YouTube
Digital Master Fun Quiz
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Business-Focused IT Leader
As businesses reach the inflection point of digital transformation, IT becomes integral part of business, or put simply, IT is business. However, traditional IT leaders have a distinct technology/tool/process focus, lack of business acumen or insight, What are the top traits of digital IT leaders, and how to develop business-focused IT management team?
Business-focused IT leaders/managers need to become T-shape professionals: The challenge any business-centric IT executive faces is that many of those who are promoted or come into management have only technical background or experience. The critical part - both through coaching them and through his/her direct input - is to move them into a conceptual understanding of the business as a whole. It doesn’t mean IT leaders/manager forget their technical expertise, but means they need to broaden their skillset, to become T-shape professionals.
IT leaders/managers need to focus on People, Process and Technology with the proper order. It has to do with the individual leader's desire to be an authentic leader, rather than just the leader of the work. How a leader's individual team members contribute to the organization through the work they do, how they evolve in their careers within the organization, or how they address performance issues to help an employee "turn around" or "turn out (leave)" is something that isn't typically an evaluative measure for most leaders. Employees are the most valuable resource organizations have. Supervisors get work done through their subordinates and yet, how much time do they actually spend with those individuals? Until leaders recognize they need to get out from behind their desks, engage people, observe, ask questions, coach and delegate, an effective performance management system is a pipe dream.
Business-focused IT leaders needs to become change agent of their business: Every IT project is business project, it should bring the positive change for their business. IT needs to become the business enabler, not just controller or even obstacle for business making things done. Business-focused IT leaders need to focus on advocating their business as a whole, not just their IT division. Just like any type of sales, IT needs to sell their services and solutions by determining their wants/needs and tailoring a presentation to convince business users of the solution; know how to implement the organizational changes needed, at least at some level, cascading down. Hence IT leaders are change agent for their business.
Business-focused IT leaders engage their staff for unleashing potentials. The "old notion" is that if you have ten staff in the same position, that they should be expected to do the same things, and be evaluated in the same way. The modern workplace doesn't work like that. Each person, even in the same job, ends up doing somewhat different things, because they bring their unique strengths to the job. So, people in the same position often do quite different things, with different strength, and should be rewarded and recognized for their unique contributions.
Compared to traditional IT managers who focus on infrastructure, building IT project from scratch, running IT as a service desk/back office function; business-focused IT leaders need to be more audacious to encourage innovation; take advantage of the emerging digital technologies, such as Cloud/social/mobile/analytics, equipped with the agile mindset -Change over document, people over process, built for change, grow business capabilities, and significantly improve IT maturity.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
A “Guru” Mind
Guru is someone who has great knowledge and wisdom and uses it to guide others then there will always be both a want and a need for gurus. In Western usage, the meaning of "guru" has been extended to cover anyone who acquires followers.There are teachers who teach, and then there are teachers who inspire others, these are the gurus.
The true guru never stops learning: The gurus are the brilliant people, master in their craft who are creative and use their thought-processes to create more. Their minds fill with ideas and their hands continually fulfill their vision.True gurus typically never view themselves as gurus and the more expertise they develop in an area the more they realize they have to learn. It's almost as if their deep insights on a particular topic or area of expertise opens their minds to how much more there is to learn about that topic and just how far they still have to go.
Guru vs. Sage vs thought leaders: In many circumstance, these words can be used interchangeably. But some clarify the differences: Gurus give you answers. Answers ends thought and perpetuate your dependence on them. A sage is a person of profound wisdom. Sages ask you questions. That old Socratic thing about making you unsure where previously you were so certain, and by making you think for yourself build your independence of them. The true Sage frames the issues, the deepest problems. And their questions (not their answers) - continue to impress and create the forms of authority with which we are familiar. Thought leaders" also has a connotation of "guru"; someone that has enough knowledge on a given subject to talk intelligently about it and "lead" or teach others to do what they've done. And some think thought leaders more focus on substance or insight, rather than knowledge itself, and they can walk the talk because they are the leaders.
Do not blindly follow, apply your own critical thinking and independent thinking. It is also true that gurus can teach good things and bad things. The followers are all personally responsible to decide which, if any, guru's you follow. And you have to apply critical thinking to make a good judgement. Critical thinking has been described as “reasonable reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do. Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. It has also been described as "thinking about thinking."
Digital is like the fertilized soil, sprout more “gurus.” The business and management world is full of masters and followers. Increasingly, as civilization evolves, we have more information and greater opportunity to think for ourselves. We have better access to information on most topics. It is also true that social media has greatly increased the capability to create and grow followers, a vital ingredient for gurus. Still, guru is a type of knowledge leader, just like any kind of leaders, you have to continue to practice by continuing to learn; and you also need to have the courage to de-learn and relearn when the knowledge you have is already out of date. Also you need to be humbled to be a follower in the other disciplines from other “gurus,” or put simply, a “guru” mind is a continuously learning & growth and continuously delivery & update mind.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
February 14, 2015
A Loving Mind with “Love Principles”
Love is harder than a diamond and softer than a flower!
It is Feb. 14th again, what is love? Does love come from the heart or the mind first? Is love inside-out or outside-in? Which color is love, is it black & white or is it colorful? Is love more emotional or logical? Is love conditional or unconditional, personal or universal? Many think that love is a type of heart-feeling, but what about a loving mind:
Love is a mindset. The feelings of love emanate from the release of neurotransmitters in the human mind/body field that make one "feel good." And one can release these transmitters by changing the manner in which you think. You can think good thoughts or bad ones and the ones you focus on are who you become. You can be an energy field of love or of hate or anything in between by choosing the thoughts you have. Love is a mindset.
If a loving heart is emotional; then a loving mind is logical: LOVE is the silent force that leads one from the inside, allowing one to always make the right choice in life. LOVE is the energy that comes out from the connection between one’s mind and one’s heart. Love is the source that will help the world change for the better...LOVE is the key that opens the door to the new reality that is arising.
Loving is missing pieces of jigsaw puzzle. Love is when you find the tiny pieces of jigsaw puzzles that you were missing in your soul, inside the other. We’re all connected and all hold some missing pieces of the puzzle. We just need to free our minds and souls to connect the pieces together as beings. Love really has no boundaries.
Love is beyond cognition: the reality of meta-cognition; a sublime interplay between emotions and the underlying subconscious. Love is an immeasurable brain power source, that fuels one’s souls. That secret place within each of us, that none truly conceive its function and purpose. It drives one’s existence, it feeds one’s desires, it propels the strength to accomplish the extraordinary. Its loss can drive one to madness, blackening the soul, shadowing the heart.
Love is a kind of capability underpinned by the brain power. and as the nature of truth, love is paradoxical - it has joy and suffering; tough and relaxing; logical and emotional; inclusive and exclusive; personal and universal. It come in many forms, with full spectrum of colors, and has four seasons - Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn. The true love is timeless.
The LOVE Principle is the very CORE to shape a high mature organization and a better society. The challenge is for 'change managers' to embed The LOVE Principle in practice across structures and within teams, to define holistically what it means in the context of their own operations, and to implement the approach for establishing the culture of empathy and make influence on society as well. L - logical: Love is a brainpower and mindset.O - optimistic: Love is thinking, hoping, and believing and doing what is good. For good attracts good... V - virtuous: Love has no envy, with appreciation and acceptance. E - equitable. Love is inclusive, empathetic and intellectual.
LOVE is holistic: not only sees the uniqueness of the person, the beauty of the person and the value of the person; more importantly, you can appreciate one’s difference or tolerate one’s weakness. Authentic love is not attracted simply by attributes or qualities of another person that might light a spark in you. You are not looking for a product that meets all your specifications, you are looking for a person as a whole. Qualities are repeatable, they can always be found in someone else and to a higher degree. so if love is only based on the qualities of another person and then your love is going to go for the person who has those qualities. Such qualities will expire overtime; then your love is going to drift somewhere else to look for these qualities. Love can last forever if you go beyond the qualities that you are looking for, it’s holistic.
Love is the bridge to connect mind and heart. A loving mind following the “LOVE” principles is the strongest or perhaps the only power to brighten the world and harmonize human society.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
It is Feb. 14th again, what is love? Does love come from the heart or the mind first? Is love inside-out or outside-in? Which color is love, is it black & white or is it colorful? Is love more emotional or logical? Is love conditional or unconditional, personal or universal? Many think that love is a type of heart-feeling, but what about a loving mind:
Love is a mindset. The feelings of love emanate from the release of neurotransmitters in the human mind/body field that make one "feel good." And one can release these transmitters by changing the manner in which you think. You can think good thoughts or bad ones and the ones you focus on are who you become. You can be an energy field of love or of hate or anything in between by choosing the thoughts you have. Love is a mindset.
If a loving heart is emotional; then a loving mind is logical: LOVE is the silent force that leads one from the inside, allowing one to always make the right choice in life. LOVE is the energy that comes out from the connection between one’s mind and one’s heart. Love is the source that will help the world change for the better...LOVE is the key that opens the door to the new reality that is arising.
Loving is missing pieces of jigsaw puzzle. Love is when you find the tiny pieces of jigsaw puzzles that you were missing in your soul, inside the other. We’re all connected and all hold some missing pieces of the puzzle. We just need to free our minds and souls to connect the pieces together as beings. Love really has no boundaries.
Love is beyond cognition: the reality of meta-cognition; a sublime interplay between emotions and the underlying subconscious. Love is an immeasurable brain power source, that fuels one’s souls. That secret place within each of us, that none truly conceive its function and purpose. It drives one’s existence, it feeds one’s desires, it propels the strength to accomplish the extraordinary. Its loss can drive one to madness, blackening the soul, shadowing the heart.
Love is a kind of capability underpinned by the brain power. and as the nature of truth, love is paradoxical - it has joy and suffering; tough and relaxing; logical and emotional; inclusive and exclusive; personal and universal. It come in many forms, with full spectrum of colors, and has four seasons - Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn. The true love is timeless.
The LOVE Principle is the very CORE to shape a high mature organization and a better society. The challenge is for 'change managers' to embed The LOVE Principle in practice across structures and within teams, to define holistically what it means in the context of their own operations, and to implement the approach for establishing the culture of empathy and make influence on society as well. L - logical: Love is a brainpower and mindset.O - optimistic: Love is thinking, hoping, and believing and doing what is good. For good attracts good... V - virtuous: Love has no envy, with appreciation and acceptance. E - equitable. Love is inclusive, empathetic and intellectual.
LOVE is holistic: not only sees the uniqueness of the person, the beauty of the person and the value of the person; more importantly, you can appreciate one’s difference or tolerate one’s weakness. Authentic love is not attracted simply by attributes or qualities of another person that might light a spark in you. You are not looking for a product that meets all your specifications, you are looking for a person as a whole. Qualities are repeatable, they can always be found in someone else and to a higher degree. so if love is only based on the qualities of another person and then your love is going to go for the person who has those qualities. Such qualities will expire overtime; then your love is going to drift somewhere else to look for these qualities. Love can last forever if you go beyond the qualities that you are looking for, it’s holistic.
Love is the bridge to connect mind and heart. A loving mind following the “LOVE” principles is the strongest or perhaps the only power to brighten the world and harmonize human society.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
How do you Measure Application Reuse
Application reusability is a common industry practice, just like most of things, it has both upsides and downsides. Although in most cases the upside of reuse out-weights the penalties. But just give a thought to the negatives as well as the positives, in order to measure application reusability via the lense of efficiency, effectiveness and agility. How do you even try to qualify the ROI for something like reuse (in terms of, faster time to market, faster development times, standardized applications consistent UI etc.)Governance and technical maturity: Reuse code have multiple aspects: pure code (sub-routines), formal code libraries (generic utilities), web services (standardized business processes), data (master, reference), etc. There are different dynamics at work in each area, and therefore different paths to success. The business value of application reuse is easiest to communicate after educating the business on the different stages of technical maturity, the advantages and costs of each stage. The sooner in the organization's maturity reuse is leveraged, the sooner the organization will be able to be both global and locally flexibly. If you need to increase reuse of application components, that means you have to spend resources in ensuring 1) clearly define the frameworks 2) allow developers to easily search for existing components (to see if they can be reused) and put in some governance to track if it is happening or not. To justify spending resources doing all the above, management would obviously like to see some quantifiable benefits of doing this verses other project with higher ROI.
All fair reasons you want to reuse: While looking to reuse you obviously have to ensure that you don't increasing your collateral in old technologies or business processes that you want to get rid off. Here are the fair reasons you want to reuse: 1). Must be on the technologies that are going to be around for the next few years. 2). Should require limited customization. 3.) User experience should not be sacrificed too much. 4). Decrease the development and/or support costs (as opposed to a new custom solution). 5). Decrease your time to market 6). Standardizes some user experience 7). Leverages common maintenance and standard features
The Cons of Reuse: Reuse is not necessarily good, it carries several penalties that in some cases outweigh the benefits. Reuse happens at many levels so I'll address the higher level reuse that architects tend to consider rather than low level code reuse. But the issues are similar. What I'm about to say should not be construed as an argument for not reusing, just a plea to remember that everything has downsides and they should be considered along with the benefits. What are the negatives? 1) Reuse costs extra. It is very rare that a reusable component is built as cheaply as a bespoke one-off design would be. It will typically have extra flexibility and configuration options included. Every doubling of the number of users increases complexity by about 30-50%. Increased complexity increases cost of development, testing, configuration and maintenance. 2) Reuse slows things down. Because changes to reusable components have to be acceptable to a wider body of customers, you need some way to get consensus to any change. You need to test the change against all parties requirements to ensure you don't break anything, but that extends the time required. In addition the extra complexity mentioned increases the time to analyse changes and fixes. Reuse tends to be slower. Bespoke code can be highly tuned for performance. Code that must serve the needs of many is harder to tune because what is fast in one context might be slower in another. The reusable component must be acceptable to all. 3) A developer’s arrogance or fear: A factor that can increase the perceived cost of reuse is "developer arrogance"; the belief that custom is better and/or that "I" can do it better. I have been successful in channeling this energy into: "then help us develop a better library, web service, master data entity, etc.". Another factor is the developer's fear of the unknown: if you have never followed a reusable approach it seems inherently risky. In some cases, the developer is incapable of generalizing, most just need to have the way illuminated and they catch on fairly quickly.
Reuse or not is situational, but through the pros and cons of application reuse analytics, IT leaders can set the right policy, effective governance discipline and the comprehensive time and cost estimation in managing project portfolio successfully.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
February 13, 2015
Digital Master XXXVIIII: Is Customer Experience Improvement all about Culture
Keep remember that it is the policies, procedures, rewards and retributions that drive behavior and it is the employee behavior you experience that expresses "culture.”
How to become a customer-centric organization is in every forward-thinking organization’s agenda, and a very foundation to become a Digital Master. Customer experience improvement is a hot topic - is it really all about culture?
Being a listening ear, resolving and implementing a resolution without lack of respect for all parties. It doesn't matter if the organizational size-reputations can succeed or fail if customer dissatisfied with the service received. Communicate, communicate, communicate! The last thing a customer wants is to still have a lingering doubt or question at the end. Sometimes a little active listening helps a great deal. Make sure the representative understands clearly the customer's concern before proceeding forward. Neither party should be afraid to ask or repeat a question.
The key point is to always know and remember that Customer Experience means to help people, it is personal. On the face of it, you may be solving a technical, service or financial issues, or other kind of the problems. However, there's always a person whom you are solving this for, because he/she has a need. Once you keep this in mind, the rest is straightforward. The personnel attitude, keeping up with support procedures, improving communications etc. Everything is personal, it comes to the conclusion that you either delight, thrill, and excite your customers, or you don't. This "neutral" customer fallacy results in a whole bunch of mercenaries that only look out for themselves, and don't care about the business.
It is the culture that clearly impacts how those policies, procedures, and rewards that drive behavior. It takes leadership to move things in a new direction and to do that; without cultural awareness would just cause the leader to likely run into the same brick walls past leaders have encountered. The most effective way of achieving cultural change and improving the customer experience is to keep it simple and not over complicate the process with irrelevant and unhelpful baggage, no matter how tempting it is to do so. Continue to assess the score of customer-centric culture on how easy or difficult is it to conduct business with any company on a physical, conceptual, emotional, and time wasting level? The amount of effort required can determine whether they will come back or not. The key point is to understand your customer's needs. You don't know your customers if you don't know where they want to be.
The systems, processes and so forth are the clear manifestation of the leaderships' culture. No matter what they say about values, mission, etc. the behaviours they reward are the clearest indication of the culture they are trying to put in place and they drive and reward those behaviours through the implementation of KPIs, policies, processes, etc. The company goals, policies, internal control requirements, customer experience improvements / customer satisfaction, etc., all should be synchronized without compromising the need of any item. The staff want to be involved in developing policies and procedures to achieve the organizations goals, but this has to be meaningful involvement and be seen to be meaningful, don`t ask the staff to develop ideas and then ignore their input.
Culture is significant, but it’s not all about culture. Behind them there must be a leadership capable to share objectives with his/her people, to promote discussion, to not have fear to put in discussion of the ideas. There are reliability, responsiveness, competence, empathy, ownership. Customer service is not just one department’s work, but the shared responsibility of entire organization, To minimize frustration, people must feel part of an organism that looks and walks in one only direction. In all the conversations about culture, you need to remember that it is the policies, procedures, rewards and retributions that drive behavior and it is the employee behavior you experience that expresses "culture.”
Digitalization is like a flywheel, and Digital Masters are the one riding above it. Surf more Information about Digital Master:
Digital Master Kindle Version Book Order URL
Digital Master Introduction URL
Digital Master Author URL
Digital Master Video Clip on YouTube
Digital Master Fun Quiz
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
How to become a customer-centric organization is in every forward-thinking organization’s agenda, and a very foundation to become a Digital Master. Customer experience improvement is a hot topic - is it really all about culture?Being a listening ear, resolving and implementing a resolution without lack of respect for all parties. It doesn't matter if the organizational size-reputations can succeed or fail if customer dissatisfied with the service received. Communicate, communicate, communicate! The last thing a customer wants is to still have a lingering doubt or question at the end. Sometimes a little active listening helps a great deal. Make sure the representative understands clearly the customer's concern before proceeding forward. Neither party should be afraid to ask or repeat a question.
The key point is to always know and remember that Customer Experience means to help people, it is personal. On the face of it, you may be solving a technical, service or financial issues, or other kind of the problems. However, there's always a person whom you are solving this for, because he/she has a need. Once you keep this in mind, the rest is straightforward. The personnel attitude, keeping up with support procedures, improving communications etc. Everything is personal, it comes to the conclusion that you either delight, thrill, and excite your customers, or you don't. This "neutral" customer fallacy results in a whole bunch of mercenaries that only look out for themselves, and don't care about the business.
It is the culture that clearly impacts how those policies, procedures, and rewards that drive behavior. It takes leadership to move things in a new direction and to do that; without cultural awareness would just cause the leader to likely run into the same brick walls past leaders have encountered. The most effective way of achieving cultural change and improving the customer experience is to keep it simple and not over complicate the process with irrelevant and unhelpful baggage, no matter how tempting it is to do so. Continue to assess the score of customer-centric culture on how easy or difficult is it to conduct business with any company on a physical, conceptual, emotional, and time wasting level? The amount of effort required can determine whether they will come back or not. The key point is to understand your customer's needs. You don't know your customers if you don't know where they want to be.
The systems, processes and so forth are the clear manifestation of the leaderships' culture. No matter what they say about values, mission, etc. the behaviours they reward are the clearest indication of the culture they are trying to put in place and they drive and reward those behaviours through the implementation of KPIs, policies, processes, etc. The company goals, policies, internal control requirements, customer experience improvements / customer satisfaction, etc., all should be synchronized without compromising the need of any item. The staff want to be involved in developing policies and procedures to achieve the organizations goals, but this has to be meaningful involvement and be seen to be meaningful, don`t ask the staff to develop ideas and then ignore their input. Culture is significant, but it’s not all about culture. Behind them there must be a leadership capable to share objectives with his/her people, to promote discussion, to not have fear to put in discussion of the ideas. There are reliability, responsiveness, competence, empathy, ownership. Customer service is not just one department’s work, but the shared responsibility of entire organization, To minimize frustration, people must feel part of an organism that looks and walks in one only direction. In all the conversations about culture, you need to remember that it is the policies, procedures, rewards and retributions that drive behavior and it is the employee behavior you experience that expresses "culture.”
Digitalization is like a flywheel, and Digital Masters are the one riding above it. Surf more Information about Digital Master:
Digital Master Kindle Version Book Order URL
Digital Master Introduction URL
Digital Master Author URL
Digital Master Video Clip on YouTube
Digital Master Fun Quiz
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
An Accelerated Mind
"There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come." -Victor Hugo
Human minds are perhaps one of the most powerful but mysterious things in the universe, as they continue to imagine and invent things for changing the world; the fact is that the world now becomes more advanced, complex and dynamic than ever, while certain types of mindset may start lagging behind, to put the other way, the "crazy" mind in industrial age becomes the new normal with digital speed; while the normal mind in industrial era becomes out of dated at digital era. So, should people now accelerate the mind shift to adapt to the change shaped by themselves? What are those open and accelerated mind needed in 21st century?
1. Fixed to Accelerated Mind
Fixed mindset refers to those who approach the work with fixed mindset-the assumption that their abilities were innate and not subject to change; while accelerated or growth mind refers to those who solve problems or target the goals with growth mind- the belief that their ability level was nothing more than a snapshot in time and eminently changeable as they continued to learn and develop.
The Accelerated Mind is Digital Mind: In industrial era, fixed mindset is OK to survive as the business and world are slow to change; however, at age of digitalization, knowledge is only clicks away, growth mind is strategic imperative to adapt to the changes, and accelerated mind is needed to match the digital speed. The speed in organizations is determined by: -The speed of transactions -The speed of decision making -The speed with which new ideas are created -How fast ideas are brought to market -The velocity of capital flows -The speed which information and knowledge flows through the economic system.
-The speed talent employees learn the new knowledge.
Enforce the strength and unleash the potential: Fixed mindset sticks to the old way to do things while accelerated mind enjoys new thinking, though it doesn't mean the talent with accelerated mind should compete for everything, rather, it means one needs to stay focus, set discipline, enforce the strength and unleash the potential; it means to understand human’s difference and pursue uniqueness. And an accelerated leadership is authentic, audacious, adaptive, aggressive when necessary—these business leaders have what we call the accelerated mind. 2. Silo to Connected Mind
Either business or world are transforming from siloed functions, sum of pieces into a hyper-connected whole, thus, one’s mind also needs to be shifted to think differently and holistically. At digital era, what we need is not just a faster speed, but a hyper-connected ecosystem. The digital philosophy comes from a worldview that looks at the world as one. It's a holistic view that sees the world as interconnected and interdependent and integrated. The silo which blocks the speed needs to be cursed because people who should be sharing information and helping each other to delight the customer are fighting each other for influence, power and glory. How to shift from a silo to connected mind though:Shape the new thinking boxes: Optimize the whole, not the separate silos. Silo thinking tends to hinder any efforts to systematically reduce operational complexity. Without a cross-functional, end-to-end perspective across the entire enterprise, managers tend to focus on their own functions or departments. This silo thinking is a source of process complexity and speed block.
Shape the collaborative mind to achieve win-win-win: Don't let the power of your organization move to another organization that has learned the secrets of collaboration, connectedness and cooperation. The time it takes work to flow through the organization needs to be shorter. By working with the people who actually do the work, significant improvements are possible which is a win-win-win: Win 1- The customers get better service. Win 2 -The costs of inefficiency are reduced. Win 3 -The workers take ownership of the process and business.3. Exclusive to Inclusive Mind
To speed up and accelerate digital transformation, companies should capture collective insight, analyze all critical, cross-functional processes, connect divergent factors at business ecosystem in decision making and business strategic planning. Inclusiveness is the lever. Inclusiveness is the quality of the organizational environment that maximizes and leverages the diverse talents, backgrounds and perspectives of all employees. Diversity in the global context can be defined as visible and invisible differences, cognition, thinking styles, experience, culture etc.
Hard-Wire Diversity into Your Business: Collective mindsets are connected and accelerated than any single mindset. The world becomes more inclusive: At digital era, the business functional border, the company border, and even the profession border are blurred; indeed, the world becomes more inclusive, admit of the inclusion of wide variety of specializations under one umbrella.
Inclusive leaders have inter-disciplinary knowledge and empathetic cognizance; always capture insight and substance, rather than look at things on the surface; always put other people’s shoes on, understand perspectives different from their own, and build networks with people outside of their organization.
Mindset is everything. Human’s mind is the most valuable thing to shape every progress, but also the root cause of all mankind problems, it’s time to accelerate your digital mind; from closed to open; from silo to holistic; from exclusive to inclusive and reawaken your limitless potentials.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Human minds are perhaps one of the most powerful but mysterious things in the universe, as they continue to imagine and invent things for changing the world; the fact is that the world now becomes more advanced, complex and dynamic than ever, while certain types of mindset may start lagging behind, to put the other way, the "crazy" mind in industrial age becomes the new normal with digital speed; while the normal mind in industrial era becomes out of dated at digital era. So, should people now accelerate the mind shift to adapt to the change shaped by themselves? What are those open and accelerated mind needed in 21st century?1. Fixed to Accelerated Mind
Fixed mindset refers to those who approach the work with fixed mindset-the assumption that their abilities were innate and not subject to change; while accelerated or growth mind refers to those who solve problems or target the goals with growth mind- the belief that their ability level was nothing more than a snapshot in time and eminently changeable as they continued to learn and develop.
The Accelerated Mind is Digital Mind: In industrial era, fixed mindset is OK to survive as the business and world are slow to change; however, at age of digitalization, knowledge is only clicks away, growth mind is strategic imperative to adapt to the changes, and accelerated mind is needed to match the digital speed. The speed in organizations is determined by: -The speed of transactions -The speed of decision making -The speed with which new ideas are created -How fast ideas are brought to market -The velocity of capital flows -The speed which information and knowledge flows through the economic system.
-The speed talent employees learn the new knowledge.
Enforce the strength and unleash the potential: Fixed mindset sticks to the old way to do things while accelerated mind enjoys new thinking, though it doesn't mean the talent with accelerated mind should compete for everything, rather, it means one needs to stay focus, set discipline, enforce the strength and unleash the potential; it means to understand human’s difference and pursue uniqueness. And an accelerated leadership is authentic, audacious, adaptive, aggressive when necessary—these business leaders have what we call the accelerated mind. 2. Silo to Connected Mind
Either business or world are transforming from siloed functions, sum of pieces into a hyper-connected whole, thus, one’s mind also needs to be shifted to think differently and holistically. At digital era, what we need is not just a faster speed, but a hyper-connected ecosystem. The digital philosophy comes from a worldview that looks at the world as one. It's a holistic view that sees the world as interconnected and interdependent and integrated. The silo which blocks the speed needs to be cursed because people who should be sharing information and helping each other to delight the customer are fighting each other for influence, power and glory. How to shift from a silo to connected mind though:Shape the new thinking boxes: Optimize the whole, not the separate silos. Silo thinking tends to hinder any efforts to systematically reduce operational complexity. Without a cross-functional, end-to-end perspective across the entire enterprise, managers tend to focus on their own functions or departments. This silo thinking is a source of process complexity and speed block.
Shape the collaborative mind to achieve win-win-win: Don't let the power of your organization move to another organization that has learned the secrets of collaboration, connectedness and cooperation. The time it takes work to flow through the organization needs to be shorter. By working with the people who actually do the work, significant improvements are possible which is a win-win-win: Win 1- The customers get better service. Win 2 -The costs of inefficiency are reduced. Win 3 -The workers take ownership of the process and business.3. Exclusive to Inclusive Mind
To speed up and accelerate digital transformation, companies should capture collective insight, analyze all critical, cross-functional processes, connect divergent factors at business ecosystem in decision making and business strategic planning. Inclusiveness is the lever. Inclusiveness is the quality of the organizational environment that maximizes and leverages the diverse talents, backgrounds and perspectives of all employees. Diversity in the global context can be defined as visible and invisible differences, cognition, thinking styles, experience, culture etc.
Hard-Wire Diversity into Your Business: Collective mindsets are connected and accelerated than any single mindset. The world becomes more inclusive: At digital era, the business functional border, the company border, and even the profession border are blurred; indeed, the world becomes more inclusive, admit of the inclusion of wide variety of specializations under one umbrella.
Inclusive leaders have inter-disciplinary knowledge and empathetic cognizance; always capture insight and substance, rather than look at things on the surface; always put other people’s shoes on, understand perspectives different from their own, and build networks with people outside of their organization.
Mindset is everything. Human’s mind is the most valuable thing to shape every progress, but also the root cause of all mankind problems, it’s time to accelerate your digital mind; from closed to open; from silo to holistic; from exclusive to inclusive and reawaken your limitless potentials.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
February 12, 2015
Digital Master Tuning XXXVIII: Do People Like or Hate Change
The challenge for change leaders is to ensure any change is presented in a way that the end users understand it in terms of "what's in it for me."
People love change if they are involved and/or take the initiative, but they hate being changed by someone else without having effect on the situation. But Change is the only constant, and the speed of change is accelerating, how to adapt to change is the very quality to grow as a Digital Master.
People love changes only if they are pioneer in introducing the change; and always look forward to something different and new thus constantly on learning graph. The person with change inertia is adverse to any change and want to continue with same old routine. But the overwhelming majority of people love and continue to love the change. If the negative impact of change on people is managed well in the change process (and it can be through inclusion, training, etc.), then most of that relatively small group jumps on the change wagon too.
The differentiator is that people embrace change if they understand the value adding to them. Innovations and changes that deliver improvements in their lives (both work and personal) are easier to embrace and love. The challenge for change leaders is to ensure any change is presented in a way that the end users understand it in terms of "what's in it for me." Then and only then, will they love the change and not resist it. People only like the comfort zone if they have been given no reason to consider going someplace better --or don't even know there is a "new and improved" zone they could go to. If change is going to make them feel more comfortable, they accept it. If not they resist. The bottom line .. People love comfort zone and dislike anything that will take them away from that zone. That said, no matter how well a change is led, there may always be a few people who resist because of their personalities and rigid belief systems--or because the change has a negative impact on them personally that can not be avoided. The resistances to this particular change were. - It's been tried many times before and all before failed (predisposition to doom). - The driver of the change in this case had questionable ability for the job involved.
People neither love nor hate "change." It is people’s understanding of the result of change that will drive one to behave in one way or another. Understanding change doesn't guarantee support. If one’s understanding of the result of a change is a negative, you will naturally resist it. Only trust will embolden one to support a change that undermine his/her comfort zone. In other words, it was the impact of the change on them personally they did not like--not the change itself. If they had been "pulled" into the change many/most would have had an opportunity to develop new skills and take on leadership roles in leaping to the next level of development and growth.
Leadership makes all the difference in how those you lead accept, support, or resist changes you are trying to make. It seems that the more a person will like the result of the change the less leadership is required to get them take the actions needed to achieve what they want. Isn't strong leadership needed because in most changes, there are those that benefit directly and those that lose something. Leadership is needed to get both groups to work to the common end regardless of how the result will impact them. The very purpose of any change is to make continuous improvement and focus on the long term prosperity for both employees and business.
Digitalization is like a flywheel, and Digital Masters are the one riding above it. Surf more Information about Digital Master:
Digital Master Kindle Version Book Order URL
Digital Master Introduction URL
Digital Master Author URL
Digital Master Video Clip on YouTube
Digital Master Fun QuizFollow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
People love change if they are involved and/or take the initiative, but they hate being changed by someone else without having effect on the situation. But Change is the only constant, and the speed of change is accelerating, how to adapt to change is the very quality to grow as a Digital Master.
People love changes only if they are pioneer in introducing the change; and always look forward to something different and new thus constantly on learning graph. The person with change inertia is adverse to any change and want to continue with same old routine. But the overwhelming majority of people love and continue to love the change. If the negative impact of change on people is managed well in the change process (and it can be through inclusion, training, etc.), then most of that relatively small group jumps on the change wagon too.
The differentiator is that people embrace change if they understand the value adding to them. Innovations and changes that deliver improvements in their lives (both work and personal) are easier to embrace and love. The challenge for change leaders is to ensure any change is presented in a way that the end users understand it in terms of "what's in it for me." Then and only then, will they love the change and not resist it. People only like the comfort zone if they have been given no reason to consider going someplace better --or don't even know there is a "new and improved" zone they could go to. If change is going to make them feel more comfortable, they accept it. If not they resist. The bottom line .. People love comfort zone and dislike anything that will take them away from that zone. That said, no matter how well a change is led, there may always be a few people who resist because of their personalities and rigid belief systems--or because the change has a negative impact on them personally that can not be avoided. The resistances to this particular change were. - It's been tried many times before and all before failed (predisposition to doom). - The driver of the change in this case had questionable ability for the job involved.
People neither love nor hate "change." It is people’s understanding of the result of change that will drive one to behave in one way or another. Understanding change doesn't guarantee support. If one’s understanding of the result of a change is a negative, you will naturally resist it. Only trust will embolden one to support a change that undermine his/her comfort zone. In other words, it was the impact of the change on them personally they did not like--not the change itself. If they had been "pulled" into the change many/most would have had an opportunity to develop new skills and take on leadership roles in leaping to the next level of development and growth.
Leadership makes all the difference in how those you lead accept, support, or resist changes you are trying to make. It seems that the more a person will like the result of the change the less leadership is required to get them take the actions needed to achieve what they want. Isn't strong leadership needed because in most changes, there are those that benefit directly and those that lose something. Leadership is needed to get both groups to work to the common end regardless of how the result will impact them. The very purpose of any change is to make continuous improvement and focus on the long term prosperity for both employees and business.
Digitalization is like a flywheel, and Digital Masters are the one riding above it. Surf more Information about Digital Master:
Digital Master Kindle Version Book Order URL
Digital Master Introduction URL
Digital Master Author URL
Digital Master Video Clip on YouTube
Digital Master Fun QuizFollow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Is Self-Service Reporting a Biggest Challenge for Big Data
The key is that you are able to create/maintain a system that has 'right data available at right time.’
Fundamentally, if you use BI for decision making, the cost of failure will determine what you can spent. Any executive that is responsible for ROIs should understand it and realize that the risk is not in the ability to graph a data set, but in the risk of using bad data. Given the skills required to validate these types of models and quantify the risk, you need a real data science capability. So is self-service reporting one of the biggest challenges for Big Data?
Self service recently has been available to management through ease of use of analytic and visualization tools. One of the major challenges in Self Service is not only how quickly data is ingested from various data sources, but making sense and presenting meaningful collaborative information in a matter of seconds. Making sense includes correlation of various events, detection of causalities, identification of anomalies, ability to dynamically ask questions about specific situations that can span zeta-bytes of data, seeing an impact in real time etc… Claiming all the necessary capabilities, but failing to scale makes Self Service unusable. The challenge is the expertise of management to understand the following fundamental items: 1). Data quality2). Source of Data3). Result trends4). Causality (many documented failures) 5). Scope (range of your data and prediction) 6). Sampling quality (geographic and time dimensions need special attention) 7). Validation (hypothesis testing typically requires additional experiments)
The key is an integrated platform for data management with an enhanced visualisation layer as the kicker. Things are changing faster than you think…Too long have you had silos for all the bits with so much resource and time and cost to pull it all together. Fast and quality self service is important as it can solve many business users problems immediately and quickly given an idea of the art of the possible and a view of what's needed to really solve the data cleaning piece. Of course for the real disparate data and data quality challenges, you need a fast and cost effective continuum from self service analytics to detailed data intelligence analytics (BI on your data itself), then to the integrated data management and visualisation all rolled up on one product. Filtering by data source would be nice. Perhaps even a data driven development framework talking the coding out of building customized solutions to the problems you are facing on the ground would also help.
Self Serving Reporting is tied to internal decision systems driven by the management culture of companies - It is a supportive technology not a disruptive technology - Big Data & Big Modeling & Big OLAP are transforming innovations that require a unique approach - First, you need to know what you are doing? why your are doing it? what is the goal? what is the expected value creation? how will this value be measured ? and then there is the change in culture to adapt and use. Self Service reporting in BI or Big Data is not just a challenge; but it is a complete paradigm shift. In simple terms, the envisioning behind the Self Service Reporting is to enable the ‘business users design/build their own reports by choosing the required subject area, its components and creating their own data-views (slice-n-dice as per their visualization).’ To get such self-service BI system in place is quite a daunting task. The very essence of minimizing the IT cost such that the demand of creating new reports or means of analyzing different data does not necessarily need IT professionals is quite a myth. The fast-paced business demands are so rapid that you constantly need to a) Refactor the code, b) Maintain data-integrity and quality c) Change the database schema and its underlying data views such that the desired drill-downs are made possible. So, take the simple example of an executive trying to make a decision on business expansion plans. The quality of that prediction will be heavily dependent on the way existing data is correlated to demographics, infrastructure capabilities, and seasonalities. Self-serving that type of analysis has very little to do with drawing a trend graph, but everything to do with data curation and validation in the context of the question. Not rocket science but not self-service BI either.
The key is that you are able to create/maintain a system that has 'right data available at right time.’ The ROI factor is an important attribute for considering Self Service BI systems. All these requires: a) Business Users (domain experts) to constantly work with these BI technologist in creating and maintaining the underlying business intelligence systems b) It requires constant training for the business users on the chosen technology stack such that they are able to manage and create their own objects, reports for required analytics. Because more often, Data Scientists have little or no knowledge of situations they would be asked to address. They will be buried by the required effort and number of requests. In many cases, by the time Data Scientists complete addressing some of the reports, the situations may change and the created reports become obsolete, resulting in a waste of time. But most importantly the actual user that needs answers is left in dark. It is a never ending game where the users almost never get the needed information timely. They also do not have any ability to dynamically change their questions and see business behavior from different angles
Self service reporting is a challenge, has been a challenge and will likely be a challenge in the years to come. The purpose is tied to internal decision systems driven by the management culture of companies, laser focus on creating business value, and accelerating business speed.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Fundamentally, if you use BI for decision making, the cost of failure will determine what you can spent. Any executive that is responsible for ROIs should understand it and realize that the risk is not in the ability to graph a data set, but in the risk of using bad data. Given the skills required to validate these types of models and quantify the risk, you need a real data science capability. So is self-service reporting one of the biggest challenges for Big Data?
Self service recently has been available to management through ease of use of analytic and visualization tools. One of the major challenges in Self Service is not only how quickly data is ingested from various data sources, but making sense and presenting meaningful collaborative information in a matter of seconds. Making sense includes correlation of various events, detection of causalities, identification of anomalies, ability to dynamically ask questions about specific situations that can span zeta-bytes of data, seeing an impact in real time etc… Claiming all the necessary capabilities, but failing to scale makes Self Service unusable. The challenge is the expertise of management to understand the following fundamental items: 1). Data quality2). Source of Data3). Result trends4). Causality (many documented failures) 5). Scope (range of your data and prediction) 6). Sampling quality (geographic and time dimensions need special attention) 7). Validation (hypothesis testing typically requires additional experiments)
The key is an integrated platform for data management with an enhanced visualisation layer as the kicker. Things are changing faster than you think…Too long have you had silos for all the bits with so much resource and time and cost to pull it all together. Fast and quality self service is important as it can solve many business users problems immediately and quickly given an idea of the art of the possible and a view of what's needed to really solve the data cleaning piece. Of course for the real disparate data and data quality challenges, you need a fast and cost effective continuum from self service analytics to detailed data intelligence analytics (BI on your data itself), then to the integrated data management and visualisation all rolled up on one product. Filtering by data source would be nice. Perhaps even a data driven development framework talking the coding out of building customized solutions to the problems you are facing on the ground would also help.
Self Serving Reporting is tied to internal decision systems driven by the management culture of companies - It is a supportive technology not a disruptive technology - Big Data & Big Modeling & Big OLAP are transforming innovations that require a unique approach - First, you need to know what you are doing? why your are doing it? what is the goal? what is the expected value creation? how will this value be measured ? and then there is the change in culture to adapt and use. Self Service reporting in BI or Big Data is not just a challenge; but it is a complete paradigm shift. In simple terms, the envisioning behind the Self Service Reporting is to enable the ‘business users design/build their own reports by choosing the required subject area, its components and creating their own data-views (slice-n-dice as per their visualization).’ To get such self-service BI system in place is quite a daunting task. The very essence of minimizing the IT cost such that the demand of creating new reports or means of analyzing different data does not necessarily need IT professionals is quite a myth. The fast-paced business demands are so rapid that you constantly need to a) Refactor the code, b) Maintain data-integrity and quality c) Change the database schema and its underlying data views such that the desired drill-downs are made possible. So, take the simple example of an executive trying to make a decision on business expansion plans. The quality of that prediction will be heavily dependent on the way existing data is correlated to demographics, infrastructure capabilities, and seasonalities. Self-serving that type of analysis has very little to do with drawing a trend graph, but everything to do with data curation and validation in the context of the question. Not rocket science but not self-service BI either.
The key is that you are able to create/maintain a system that has 'right data available at right time.’ The ROI factor is an important attribute for considering Self Service BI systems. All these requires: a) Business Users (domain experts) to constantly work with these BI technologist in creating and maintaining the underlying business intelligence systems b) It requires constant training for the business users on the chosen technology stack such that they are able to manage and create their own objects, reports for required analytics. Because more often, Data Scientists have little or no knowledge of situations they would be asked to address. They will be buried by the required effort and number of requests. In many cases, by the time Data Scientists complete addressing some of the reports, the situations may change and the created reports become obsolete, resulting in a waste of time. But most importantly the actual user that needs answers is left in dark. It is a never ending game where the users almost never get the needed information timely. They also do not have any ability to dynamically change their questions and see business behavior from different angles
Self service reporting is a challenge, has been a challenge and will likely be a challenge in the years to come. The purpose is tied to internal decision systems driven by the management culture of companies, laser focus on creating business value, and accelerating business speed.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
