Most people should be familiar with the old adage “Garbage In, Garbage Out” intended to remind people that if your input data is poor, then any outputs will also be poor. There is a variant of this that cropped up
The Decision Support Triangle
When considering which Decision Support tools are needed to meet organisational objectives, you need to consider far more than just the tool itself in order to ensure successful outcomes.
We’ve grown organically !
How data is structured is a common issue I have experienced in many organisations and has often been driven by individual end user requirements, organically growing to meet their specific business needs as they occur. The development of these structures
Decisions without information
When I saw a review of the book “Die Kunst des klugen Handelns” (The Art of Acting Cleverly) which started with the words: “Try to get through life with a minimum of information. You will make better decisions. What you
The same data… but different answer
When discussing data quality issues, we frequently address issues where inconsistent data can lead to analysis problems. The 2012 Olympics present an interesting variant where the input data is the same, but leads to a different answer…
“Information is the best disinfectant”
I went to an excellent talk recently by well known English politician Tony Benn as part of the Lichfield Literature Festival. One quotation he provided was the inspiration and title for this blog post “Information is the best disinfectant”. The
Take COINS data analysis with a pinch of salt?
Recently the UK government published extracts from the COINS database. COINS stands for the Combined On-line Information System and the extract contains details of all expenditure by UK Government Departments over £25K for the years 2008/9 and 2009/10. Expenditure is
Business Intelligence without Data Quality
I have just caught up in reading a recent supplement to the Times newspaper entitled “Business Intelligence“. As is often the case for such supplements, this is sponsored ‘advertorial’ content paid for by some of the key software providers in
There is no such thing as a data quality problem…
Over the last couple of days I have presented at a couple of conferences on the subject of Asset Information Management. When discussing with a delegate on Tuesday the nature of data quality problems, they asked: Are data quality problems