Rick Sherman

January 21, 2020
Rick Sherman

Blazing Trails in Teaching Talend: Meet Rick Sherman

From Talend: Rick Sherman is an author, educator, and a managing partner of Athena IT Solutions.  His book, Business Intelligence Guidebook: From Data Integration to Analytics, was published by Morgan […]
February 8, 2019

How to make a self-service BI tools deployment less painful

Why does self-service BI have to hurt so much? In theory, it should be the answer to all your problems. But so many enterprises end up […]
September 18, 2018
How the BI rivals stack up

Tableau vs. Power BI vs. Qlik: How the BI rivals stack up

Tableau, Power BI and Qlik Sense offer similar self-service BI functionality, consultant Rick Sherman says. But he points to some of their strengths and weaknesses. Purchasing […]
June 20, 2018
Rick Sherman at Data Summit 2018

Modern Data Architecture—Avoiding the ‘One-Tool-Fits-All Trap

A modern data architecture for business intelligence and analytics has to support structured, unstructured, and semi-structured sources, as well as hybrid integration and also meet the […]
December 28, 2017

For BI, you must know the data integration process

Understanding the data integration process is central to self-service BI and data architecture design, consultant Rick Sherman says in an end-of-year look at data management trends. […]
November 13, 2017
November Webinar

Govern first, then ask many questions

Join me for this webinar hosted by Information Management Live. Thursday November 16, 2017 1 PM ET/10 AM PT The path to fruitful analytics starts with good, […]
November 9, 2017
DM Radio

Self-Service BI on DM Radio

Join me on DM Radio DM Radio / Leave IT Alone – The Vast Value of Self-Service DATE: November 9, 2017 TIME: 3 PM Eastern / […]
October 26, 2017

Dataversity 2017

I’m excited to share with you that I’ll be presenting two unique sessions at DATAVERSITY’s Data Architecture Summit in Chicago, IL on November 13-16, 2017.  I’m also […]
July 25, 2017

Azure SQL Data Warehouse turns up the heat

Rick Sherman is quoted extensively in this new TechTarget article: Azure SQL Data Warehouse turns up the heat, expands processing power Abstract: Spirited competition is under way among […]
June 28, 2017
Modernization requires a better foundation than this

A Firm Foundation for Modernized BI & Analytics

You wouldn’t modernize a house without fixing its rickety foundation first. Similarly, your BI and analytics environment needs a firm foundation before you can update it. […]
April 12, 2017
Self-service business intelligence

Tough Love for Self-Service BI

The term self-service BI (SSBI) is common, but it’s also commonly misunderstood. The first few things I ask clients who want to discuss a SSBI project […]
April 4, 2017
When there is no data governance

Taming the Data Beast with Governance

More and more companies are recognizing that they’re accumulating ever-increasing amounts of data, but not necessarily gaining business insights from it. The missing link is the […]
April 3, 2017
Athena IT Solutions Webinar

Webinar: An action plan for customer intelligence

Webinar: An action plan for customer intelligence Understanding the customer is a long-standing goal of BI and Analytics, but striving toward that 360 degree view is […]
April 2, 2017
DAMA

DAMA Talk: Enabling Self-Service BI and Analytics

Rick Sherman is speaking at DAMA in Wellesley, MA. It’s free and open to the public. Title: Enabling Self-Service BI and Analytics When: Monday April 17,  6:00-8:15 […]
January 3, 2016

The Four Legs of a Successful Business Intelligence (BI) Project Team

A successful BI project team is like a four-legged table – each leg holds up its share of the weight. Remove one and the project wobbles. […]
November 28, 2014

New developments make data integration a businesswide effort

Data integration software is now much more than just extract, transform and load tools — it encompasses a wide range of platforms and technologies supporting real-time […]
January 11, 2011

Analytical database tips: deployment advice and potential challenges

The first part of this article discussed columnar database software and other technologies that can help boost analytics performance. But regardless of which analytical database technology […]
October 11, 2010

Business intelligence vendors, BI buyers could do more with less,

What do the iPad and business intelligence (BI) tools have in common? Not as much as they should. Apple has been getting a tremendous amount of free publicity […]
April 11, 2010

How to overcome the downsides of on-demand and SaaS BI software

As we discussed in the first part of this article, on-demand business intelligence (BI) software can be less expensive, faster to deploy and easier to use […]
November 11, 2009

Five technology trends for improved business intelligence performance

The demand for business intelligence data only continues to increase, putting BI vendors and practitioners under the gun to develop new technologies and improve existing processes […]
October 28, 2009

Understanding the latest data integration strategies and technologies

There are many emerging data integration strategies and technologies that IT can leverage to create the information needed for their business. When examining these, it is […]
September 28, 2009

Understanding key data integration trends and business drivers

This decade, and especially this recession, has seen a tsunami in demand for the data needed to make sound business decisions. Yet businesses continue to fall […]
June 11, 2008

How to evaluate data warehouse software in five steps

What’s the process for evaluating data warehouse software? 1. Establish what data warehouse software you need. The core set of tools: database; extract, transform and load […]
May 12, 2008

Don’t Stop at How, Learn Why

People involved in business intelligence (BI) and data warehousing (DW) projects are very familiar with terms such as facts, dimensions, attributes, surrogate keys and slowly changing […]
February 11, 2008

The Magic Quadrant trap: Are analyst ranking reports being used appropriately?

Analyst firm’s product ranking reports such as Gartner’s Magic Quadrants and The Forrester Wave are terrific, but are they being used appropriately? Both provide snapshots of […]
January 3, 2008

BI & DW Trends: 8 for ’08 The Song Remains the Same: Data Shadows Systems Continue to be Pervasive for Reporting and Analytics

I co-authored the TDWI report Strategies for Managing Spreadmarts: Migrating to a Managed BI Environment. In a survey we conducted in the fall of 2007 we […]
October 12, 2007

Interview: The Ins and Outs of Enterprise Master Data Management

Published by TDWI, October 2007 Q&A: The Ins and Outs of Enterprise Master Data Management Will MDM will succeed where past standardization efforts have failed? By […]
October 11, 2007

BI and CPM software: Build vs. buy

In Part 1 of this article series, “Business intelligence and corporate performance management: What’s the difference?” I discussed the inherent differences between BI and CPM and […]
September 11, 2007

BI and CPM software: What’s the difference?

What is the difference between business intelligence (BI) and corporate performance management (CPM)? What is the difference between BI and CPM vendors? The answer to the […]
June 11, 2007

Is data integration the Achilles heel of Software as a Service?

Software as a Service (SaaS) applications have created a lot of excitement and buzz. But combine all this SaaS enthusiasm with the business intelligence goals of […]
May 28, 2007

Five steps for weaving data quality management into your enterprise data integration processes

Data quality management needs to be an integral part of the design and planning of your corporate performance management (CPM), business intelligence (BI) or data warehouse […]
April 28, 2007

Data quality management: Follow the doctor’s orders

Doctors say that “prevention is the best medicine.” This holds true for data quality management, too. The sooner you identify potential problems the sooner you can […]
January 12, 2007

BI appliances: Disruptive technology or distraction?

Data warehousing (DW) appliances aren’t the only hardware appliances shaking up the industry. New on the scene are business intelligence (BI) appliances, which also have the […]
October 12, 2006

Data warehouse appliances: Are they market breakers?

Data warehousing (DW) appliances are being touted as potential market changing technology by technology and financial analysts alike. Vendors say these bundles of hardware and software […]
June 12, 2006

Data Shadow Systems Today, CPM Tomorrow

Earlier this year, at the 2006 Gartner Business Intelligence Conference, I heard a market prediction that made me wonder if industry-watchers are focusing too far into the […]