A Craigslist advertisement for analytics

Gary Cokins
Gary Cokins|October 25, 2011

Did you see the recent Craigslist website advertisement? It said: “Clueless managers seeking business analytics. Need to be easy to use and reliable. Impostors (e.g., gut feel and intuition) should not reply.” What would motivate an organization to place such an ad with the Craigslist website? My guess is it [...]

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Request to Complete Howard Dresner’s BI Market Survey

Gary Cokins
Gary Cokins|February 19, 2010

Unlike my regular blogs that share my feelings about enterprise performance management, this one is a brief appeal for those organizations using business intelligence (BI) software to complete a survey for Howard Dresner. Howard, previously an IT analyst with the Gartner Group, is an internationally recognized subject matter expert in [...]

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Bending the Curve – With a Fist, BI, or Analytics?

Gary Cokins
Gary Cokins|January 5, 2010

One of the common phrases bantered about in the USA’s debate about health care reform involves “bending the cost curve.” The phrase refers to concerns that any legislated solution must address reducing the continual increase of the USA’s health care delivery costs. What are the issues with “bending the cost [...]

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Predictive Performance Management

Gary Cokins
Gary Cokins|August 31, 2009

In Peter Evans-Greenwood’s recent blog, Inside vs. Outside, he builds a case that it is not sufficient to shift from an organization’s internal historical view of information to react to towards a predictive view of information. To clarify, he means that awareness of external forces, such as changes in market [...]

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James Taylor’s Explanation of Analytics

Gary Cokins
Gary Cokins|August 12, 2009

James Taylor, one of the IT analyst thought leaders of the broadening scope of business intelligence, has written a thoughtful piece titled Analytics simplify data to amplify its value. In his article James states that he likes his article’s title as a succinct description of analytics. He states: (Simplifying data [...]

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Rescue Squad – A Validation of Performance Management Software

Gary Cokins
Gary Cokins|March 15, 2009

IT blogger Rick Sherman, founder of Athena IT Solutions, provides empirical research that validates the contributing role of Performance Management software in preparing organizations to emerge stronger and smarter from the economic downturn. His research appears in his blog titled Business Intelligence (BI) Index: Treading Water. His headline is misleading [...]

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What Can You Learn from Subject Matter Experts?

Gary Cokins
Gary Cokins|June 25, 2008

I was recently invited by Peter Traynor of Dashboard Insight, a webportal dedicated to enterprise performance management, to participate at a business intelligence (BI) meeting. It was not a conference for the public, but rather an opportunity for a group of enthusiastic advocates and subject matter experts to learn from [...]

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Is Business Intelligence a subset of Performance Management?

Gary Cokins
Gary Cokins|June 16, 2008

In an Enterprise Systems portal article titled Four Steps to Effective Performance Management, Leah McMillan states, “Increasingly, companies are shifting away from segmented business intelligence (BI) initiatives toward a more pervasive, all-encompassing performance management (PM) strategy for driving overall organizational success.” I agree with her and in April, 2006 I [...]

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My 2007 Christmas Gift Letter to Santa Claus

Gary Cokins
Gary Cokins|December 19, 2007

December 19, 2007 TO: SANTA CLAUS; North Pole Dear Santa, I have been a good boy this past year. I believe that qualifies me for 100% order fulfillment of my following Christmas presents requests. (And I promise there will be no returns and exchanges like last year.) My top Christmas [...]

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The US Federal Government’s Gathering Storm – Retirement Attrition

Gary Cokins
Gary Cokins|August 4, 2007

The US federal government faces obvious challenges such as immigration and foreign policy issues, but a less obvious one is the imminent retirement of a substantial population of its workforce. The departure of its experienced workers will create a huge vacuum of institutional knowledge caused by . What is the [...]

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