Ammunition for the CFO: How to Be (or Satisfy) a Hardnosed Customer for Analytics

1. Ammunition for the CFO: How to Be (or Satisfy) a Hardnosed Customer for Analytics JC Herz Jnhq@yahoo.com February 28, 2012

2. When You’re at Third Base…Get Tested! • DATA AUDIT is a gating condition • Quantity • Sometimes it’s not as big as you think it is • Speed • Number of sources • Quality • Who “owns”

3. Resources • $$: None, Some, Lots, Obscene Amounts • People: How many, how good, who owns • Bandwidth: Organizational attention • Transition points • Time: have to show results when? • A week? A month? Next quarter?

4. OODA Loop and its Pitfalls • Observe, Orient, Decide, Act - where does this project play? • Observe: • Outward-facing lamp post problem (social media) • Internal: lift the rug: system is being • a) Measured • b) Managed • c) Gamed • d) Gamed with the complicity of managers

5. OODA Pitfalls: Orientation • Misunderstanding of: resources, identity, mission, market position

6. OODA Pitfalls • Decide: Is leadership undertaking a Big Data analytics effort as a way to avoid making decisions? • Act: cultural and political fallout, internally and externally: data driven decisions have consequences

7. Locus of Effort • Internal team - dedicated • Croudsourced inside organization • IT + subject matter experts: the odd couple • Consultants • Vendor • “How does this engagement build capacity within my organization” • Pretend you’re the benign dictator of a developing country, across the table from an oil company

8. Vendors • What does the vendor really sell? • Consulting services? • Bodies, Expertise, Coming up with a better algorithm • Software licenses? • Infrastructure: bandwidth, storage, CPUs • Everything looks like a nail • The iron triangle • In construction: time, cost, quality • In analytics: storage, cycles, performance • Demand three cost scenarios that minimize each