This is a presentation Andrew Brust and I delivered in NYC on 5/12/2010 to the NYC Chapter of TDWI and the NY Tech Council Analytics special interest group. Notes are here:
http://www.billbak.com/2010/05/i-t-can-run-but-i-t-cant-hide-from-microsoft-excel/
I.T. Can Run But I.T. Can't Hide (from Microsoft Excel)
1. IT Can Run, But IT Can’t Hide from Microsoft Excel Bill Baker, CTO, G4 Analytics Andrew Brust, Chief, New Technologytwentysix New York May 12, 2010, New York City
2. Premise Conventional wisdom End-users adore Excel IT Departments despise Excel But, End-users have issues with Excel too And, IT has upside from Excel
4. The Big Picture Local (decision making) Compliant Speed Strategic Empowerment Alignment Do more with less Accountable Innovative Consistent Creative
5. Not all Personal Computing is…… Personal Planning my schedule, my work – Personal Calculating a discount for a customer – Corporate Organic Centralized IT Backlog (Frustrated) Self-service (Empowered) Corporate Personal Business Intelligence (Aligned) Spread-marts (Confused)
6. Not all Personal Computing is…… Personal Planning my schedule, my work – Personal Calculating a discount for a customer – Corporate Organic Centralized IT Backlog (Frustrated) Self-service (Empowered) Lose-Lose Corporate Personal Business Intelligence (Aligned) Spread-marts (Confused)
7. Not all Personal Computing is…… Personal Planning my schedule, my work – Personal Calculating a discount for a customer – Corporate Organic Centralized IT Backlog (Frustrated) Self-service (Empowered) Win-Win Corporate Personal Business Intelligence (Aligned) Spread-marts (Confused)
8. Why Worry? Left to their own devices, your employees will find the data they want, good or bad And… they WILL share it This is the… Generation!
13. Strategies Transparency & Attribution Set clear expectations about using data for decision making Require attribution of data sources, both internal and external Expect documentation of all calculations and transformations Excel helps here
14. Strategies Self-service Provide tools that allow motivated users to build their own reports, spreadsheets and analyses Tune into the range of experience and motivation of your employees; Support a range of tools if possible Consider Excel with web queries or PowerPivot; Most of your users have these Publish ‘blessed’ data sources & publicize them
15. Strategies Sharing Reward users, with at least recognition, for sharing their reports and spreadsheets Create a site for sharing and annotating documents; This is SharePoint in many companies Implement a self-grading system and/or a community rating system Monitor usage of shared items, these will tell you where the interest lies; SharePoint can help
16. Strategies Publishing Create a site where people can expect to find interesting data Document all sources Publish through very simple web pages that supply the “brick o’data”; Match format to your self-service tools Excel 97 and above can perform Web queries against simple HTML tables: (bit.ly/OldSchoolXL) Step up to Open Data (OData) for more functionality Secure the site Monitor usage
17. Strategies Model Analytics Start by watching which shared items and which published data sources are popular If your self-service tools support it, extract meta data and connection strings to find out which other data sources are popular If your self-service tools support it, analyze expressions and KPI definitions for commonality and compliance Press your vendor(s) to support these features Be transparent
18. Summary & References Excel is here to stay IT has tools and strategies, including culture, to empower users while maintaining alignment and compliance End-users and IT: No longer a zero-sum game
19. References Responsible BI for Excel (Even for Older Versions): http://bit.ly/XLWebQuery XL97: How to Create Web Query (.iqy) Files (Microsoft KB Article): http://bit.ly/OldSchoolXL
20. Appendix: PowerPivot Allows db data to be imported w/o building a big query Allows data from apps and reports to come in, in a simple way The data can't be edited Don't have to worry about joins Can add formulas Can still build the same stuff Sharing is simple, and safe Collegues know what I did. And so does IT. I can even use social networking on SharePoint to promote the solution
