Published Articles

May 3, 2010

Can on-demand business intelligence break down pervasive BI barriers?

My two-part article on on-demand BI: Part 1 – Can on-demand business intelligence break down pervasive BI barriers? The desire of business users for information that […]
April 14, 2010

BI training key to successful pervasive business intelligence projects

  You’re breathing a sigh of relief because the hard work of your business intelligence (BI) project appears to be over. You began by carefully evaluating […]
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 30, 2009

Data Integration: Beyond ETL and Data Warehousing

Data integration suffers from an image problem. It has become synonymous with extract, transform and load (ETL). Likewise, ETL has been regarded as a data warehousing (DW) technology.  Both […]
February 19, 2009

Beyond ETL and Data Warehousing

Data integration suffers from an image problem. It has become synonymous with extract, transform and load. Likewise, ETL has been regarded as a data warehousing technology. […]
December 18, 2008

The Business Intelligence director’s 2009 letter to Santa

I’ve written letters to Santa before requesting gifts that data management and data warehousing managers would appreciate. With the current economic climate, many business intelligence (BI) […]
December 9, 2008

New Age Data Warehousing

Data warehousing (DW) and business intelligence (BI) have been evolving and getting more sophisticated over the years. As IT folks, consultants and analysts gain more experience, […]
November 21, 2008

Data warehouse architecture that’s too narrowly focused

In my DM Review columns, “The Accidental Architecture” and “Recovering from the Accidental Architecture,” I discussed whether people understood the “why” of best practices, such as dimensional modeling […]
November 19, 2008

Learn WHY you should design a data warehouse a certain way

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 […]
November 12, 2008

Start a Dialogue about Master Data Management

Just mentioning master data management (MDM) will cause businesspeople’s eyes to glaze over and most IT folks to run for the hills. Why does MDM create […]
October 16, 2008

Recovering from the Accidental Architecture

In my article “The Accidental Architecture,” I discussed how enterprises have evolved their data warehousing (DW) and business intelligence (BI) projects without a planned architecture. This […]
October 14, 2008

The Accidental Architecture

When you plan to build a house, you start with what you want and can afford. You decide on architectural style, size and number of rooms. […]
October 2, 2008

The Song Remains the Same (Data Integration Framework)

In 2003, the inaugural column I wrote discussed the Data Integration Framework (DIF). This approach is the foundation that I have used for more than 20 […]
September 11, 2008

Hub and Spoke on the Wane?

Conventional wisdom states that you should build a data warehouse (DW) and then populate data marts from it. This data architecture is called a hub and […]
September 4, 2008

More Trends in Data Integration

My last column was about hyped trends. There are other industry trends that don’t get all the hype but are happening quietly. These trends are taking hold […]
August 28, 2008

Data Integration Trends: Future Shock

Each year, industry analysts, experts and vendors bombard us with acronyms for the next big trend. There are several ways to examine these trends to determine […]
August 21, 2008

Separate the Forest from the Trees with Enterprise Data Management

The “single version of the truth.” How many times have you seen that catchphrase in presentations by industry analysts, vendors, consultants or even your own IT […]
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 […]
December 18, 2007

I’ve been a good data warehouse manager, Santa

I’ve written letters to Santa before, requesting gifts that only a data management type would appreciate. Maybe that’s why a data warehousing manager gave me a letter this […]
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 30, 2007

Back to the Basics of Data Warehousing

Business demand for information is insatiable, driven by performance management, competitive pressures, industry regulations and the exchange of data with suppliers, partners and customers. Likewise, data […]
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 […]
May 25, 2007

Operational BI – Four Flawed Assumptions

Operational business intelligence (BI) can be an integral part of a portfolio of BI solutions. But before you put it to use, see my May DM […]
May 18, 2007

Trial-and-Error Method of ETL

In the following article I point out where companies tend to go wrong in their initial use of extract, transform and load (ETL). 1. Turning a […]
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 […]
March 27, 2007

Four Flawed Business Intelligence Assumptions

In The Trial-and-Error Method for Data Integration, I discussed some common data integration mistakes. In this article I point out where companies tend to go wrong in […]
March 7, 2007

The Stairway Method of Industry Analysis

I have an oddball method for assessing the health and future of a company – the stairway method. I’m constantly asked to assess not only the […]