Assignment 2

What is meant by the term "Human Capital Productivity Analytics"? What is its relationship to business intelligence? What are Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)? Give several examples. Why must an organization possess competencies related to business process reengineering and process improvement in order to be successful at BI? How is decision making style related to BI success? Are there certain types of decision making styles that are more effective when working with BI? If so, what are they? Why is it important to conduct a BI risk assessment prior to embarking on a BI project? What is the difference between a BI stakeholder and a BI sponsor? What are the basic steps you would take to conduct a BI Readiness Assessment? This course requires you to complete a Final Project. As part of this assignment, identify the subject of your Final Project.

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Human Capital Productivity Analytics (HCPA) are me trics that are analyzed to create value. This is the stock of competencies, knowledge, social and personality attributes, including creativity, cognitive abilities, embodied in the ability to perform labor so as to produce economic value. The relationship between Human Capital Productivity Analytics and Business Intelligence (BI) is that while HCPA are the metrics used to create business value, BI makes interpreting voluminous raw data friendly. (Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_intelligence)

Key Performance Indicators are quantifiable measurements, agreed to beforehand, that reflect the critical success factors of an organization. Some examples of these indicators may include: University annual percentage of students graduated Quarterly sales numbers for regional car dealerships Annual and Quarterly sales figures for Microsoft Surface Tablets sold in comparison to rival tablet makers Adoption rate for consumers migration from Microsoft Windows XP to another version of the Windows operating system.

In order for an organization to be successful at business intelligence, it is imperative that they have core competencies in business process reengineering and process improvement. The business process reengineering methodology helps an organization re-tool their business processes to fit the over-arching business direction. If the organization processes are not helping them meet key performance indicators, then the business processes being employed must be revised. For example, Microsoft and their tablet/phone business strategy is currently going through this phase (not successfully, I might add). Once the overall business process has been

revised, each process goes through an improvement phase to fine tune the individual parts of the over-arching plan, ensuring long-term success.

Certain types of decision-makers will see the value of business intelligence, where others will not. It takes a type of decision-maker who has the patience to make evaluations based upon thorough analysis of the refined data. Business Intelligence is all about gathering raw data, refining it to a digestable format, trending the data and finally understanding it enough to make informed business decisions relevant to the growth and long-term success of the organization. There are typically four types of decision-makers: 1. Directive: The leadership makes the decision 2. Analytical: The leadership gathers information from a variety of disciplines to analyze perspectives before making a decision 3. Conceptual: The group comes together to analyze the facts and decides on the long-term decision together 4. Behavioral: The group comes together and develops alternative solutions, while the leadership does the same and both groups state their cases to the other

When it comes to compatibility with business intelligence, the analytical and conceptual decision-makers are the best suited. It is very important to have a more long-term vision with agile milestones when working with business intelligence. Various solutions must be observed, but not all need to be used, however. It is necessary for one to be constantly reevaluating when employing business intelligence methodology.

It is essential to run a business intelligence (BI) risk assessment prior to embarking on a BI project, because it helps you evaluate many of the pitfalls which could come across during an implementation project. It gives you a more complete assessment of the pros and cons associated with the project, where you need to gain more support and/or core competencies, which areas will require more group focus, how to properly budget for each phase of the project and where business process reevaluating may need to be performed. It is an analytical checks & balances procedure which helps you make an informed decision, prior to making even more costly project decisions.

The primary difference between a business intelligence stakeholder and a business intelligence sponsor is that the sponsor represents the executive-level management who give the green light to proceed with a project or step within a project; the stakeholder, however, is represents the

front-line management and support staff who are being measured against the projects' success metrics. The stakeholder has more skin in the game, so to speak. They have a lot to gain if the project implementation and task execution is successful, as well as, a lot to lose if operational goals are not met.

The steps of a Business Intelligence Readiness Assessment consist of: Understanding the high priority business requirements surrounding the organizations reporting and analytic needs. Conducting a high level review of the data and data architecture to determine its suitability for supporting the identified requirements. Deriving a roadmap based on the data realities and business priorities to assure the DW/BI environment will meet the organizations ongoing and future reporting and analytic needs. Interview key business and IT sponsors and stakeholders. Analyze critical business requirements, executive commitment, and fundamental technical issues. Facilitate a management session to review findings, reach consensus on priorities, and secure commitment to a roadmap. Recommend an overall strategy for delivering enhanced DW/BI capabilities, including overall methodology, project scope, and data architecture.

(http://www.kimballgroup.com/data-warehouse-business-intelligence-consulting/dw-bi-strategy-assessment/)