July 18, 2015 at 11:26 am
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Presenting Data
July 18, 2015 at 12:28 pm
This is the most important...
One of the best things you can do as a developer or DBA is ensure you can write efficient queries that assemble data from a variety of tables in different formats.
The problem with BI is that "Business Intelligence" is frequently an oxymoron. No matter what the data is or how it is presented, the people that it's all provided/presented to actually need to use it to come to the correct conclusions and then take the correct actions. I can't speak for anyone else but I find that to frequently be a rarity. In fact, I've found it to be more common for certain people to ask if the data can be used to present a different picture because they already have it in their mind what they want the data to say rather than what it's actually telling them.
As granny used to say "Figures can lie and liars figure".
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
July 20, 2015 at 4:24 am
And how many of us have been asked to produce a report that barely fits onto A3 landscape with a font size of 6pt? Or tune a 500 page report that you know will never be read, but its there for just in case as more paper equates to more work when talking to a client.
Doesn't help when to many people suggest some fancy eye candy that is hard to understand, but at least it is pretty:w00t:
July 20, 2015 at 6:46 am
Jeff Moden (7/18/2015)
This is the most important...One of the best things you can do as a developer or DBA is ensure you can write efficient queries that assemble data from a variety of tables in different formats.
The problem with BI is that "Business Intelligence" is frequently an oxymoron. No matter what the data is or how it is presented, the people that it's all provided/presented to actually need to use it to come to the correct conclusions and then take the correct actions. I can't speak for anyone else but I find that to frequently be a rarity. In fact, I've found it to be more common for certain people to ask if the data can be used to present a different picture because they already have it in their mind what they want the data to say rather than what it's actually telling them.
As granny used to say "Figures can lie and liars figure".
I've found that presenting data as clearly as possible to as many people as possible can snooker the moroffs who want to use it to bolster their case even tough it actually blows their case right out of the water. The presentation techniques to use for this don't of course include the techniques commonly used by politicians, pharmaceutical company PR men, and other charlatans to support their incorrect conclusions and disastrously incorrect actions. Of course if the moroff can they will restrict circulation of the data, in which case you can knuckle under/cave in, or send people unauthorised copies anyway, or start looking for a job in a company that's not about to screw itself.
Tom
July 20, 2015 at 8:44 am
Steve, I agree with what you wrote in your article, but I also see the objections that others have written. At my old job we had to write reports giving the user or manager the information they wanted. Many years ago my boss at the time tried to make data cubes work. He got together with our managers at the City and showed them how they could import that data from the data cubes into Excel to do their own analysis, make their own charts, etc. However that never went anywhere, because those managers didn't have the skills to work with Excel in that way. Instead they just wanted canned reports.
Then I've also seen how politics effected things. Again at my old job, about 10 years ago or so, we had to produce a canned report called a Client Profile report, which showed what the typical client we had come in for our help and services. However the managers at the time didn't like what the report was saying, so they had us stop producing it for years. (Some years before I left the new managers had us turn that report back on.)
Now at my new job, I'm still learning how they want the reports here. This is a much larger organization. As I understand it some people aren't very sophisticated; they want canner reports. Others are data analyst in their own right, so the want data cubes and they'll analyze the data themselves. That should make working here more interesting.
Ultimately I do think that honing our skills at writing queries is good, and that goes for developers as well as DBAs.
Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.
July 20, 2015 at 9:22 am
I'm not saying that any report is good. Or that all the reports you come up with will be used or well received. I'm not advocating anything, nor asking you to do so.
I'm saying build your skills, and also, tame your ego.
If you build a great report (to you) and the users don't want it, who cares? What's it to you? Don't get too involved in running the business your way. Your job is to make it easier for others to run the business their way.
Give them your opinion, and your reasons, and do the work. Help them to learn where you can, and give them what they want when they won't learn.
Keep a bit of humility and understand you may not be "right", whatever that is.
July 20, 2015 at 9:44 am
One of the best things you can do as a developer or DBA is ensure you can write efficient queries that assemble data from a variety of tables in different formats. Queries that retrieve data that can answer a question or reveal a pattern.
One of those 'mum, apple pie and the flag' type of editorials. (Or 'Queen and Country' if you're from my side of the pond.)
July 20, 2015 at 11:08 am
TomThomson (7/20/2015)
Jeff Moden (7/18/2015)
This is the most important...One of the best things you can do as a developer or DBA is ensure you can write efficient queries that assemble data from a variety of tables in different formats.
The problem with BI is that "Business Intelligence" is frequently an oxymoron. No matter what the data is or how it is presented, the people that it's all provided/presented to actually need to use it to come to the correct conclusions and then take the correct actions. I can't speak for anyone else but I find that to frequently be a rarity. In fact, I've found it to be more common for certain people to ask if the data can be used to present a different picture because they already have it in their mind what they want the data to say rather than what it's actually telling them.
As granny used to say "Figures can lie and liars figure".
I've found that presenting data as clearly as possible to as many people as possible can snooker the moroffs who want to use it to bolster their case even tough it actually blows their case right out of the water. The presentation techniques to use for this don't of course include the techniques commonly used by politicians, pharmaceutical company PR men, and other charlatans to support their incorrect conclusions and disastrously incorrect actions. Of course if the moroff can they will restrict circulation of the data, in which case you can knuckle under/cave in, or send people unauthorised copies anyway, or start looking for a job in a company that's not about to screw itself.
Ha, ha, ha.... that brought real smile to my face, Tom, especially the part after the last comma in all of that because that's what I've done in the past. I'll also help identify to the right people anything the company might be doing that's, shall we say, that's "unethical" or "problematic" to try to help the company (they are paying me a salary to provide a service to the company whether I be an FTE or in a consultant's capacity). Although it has certainly narrowed down the number of companies that I would consider employment with, I flat out refuse to spin data or provide such data to spinners. The later would be me "lying by omission" and I just can't and won't do that.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
July 20, 2015 at 11:12 am
The problem with BI is that "Business Intelligence" is frequently an oxymoron. No matter what the data is or how it is presented, the people that it's all provided/presented to actually need to use it to come to the correct conclusions and then take the correct actions. I can't speak for anyone else but I find that to frequently be a rarity.
'I find that frequently to be a rarity' ... sounds as if it's a bit of an oxymoron, too!
July 20, 2015 at 11:16 am
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (7/20/2015)
I'm not saying that any report is good. Or that all the reports you come up with will be used or well received. I'm not advocating anything, nor asking you to do so.I'm saying build your skills, and also, tame your ego.
If you build a great report (to you) and the users don't want it, who cares? What's it to you? Don't get too involved in running the business your way. Your job is to make it easier for others to run the business their way.
Give them your opinion, and your reasons, and do the work. Help them to learn where you can, and give them what they want when they won't learn.
Keep a bit of humility and understand you may not be "right", whatever that is.
Funny enough, I absolutely agree with all that. I'm not the one that has to present the report to interested parties. Although I always try to understand the big picture so that I might be able to provide a different insight to the person requesting the report, it's not me that I have to satisfy (except for the ethical thing) as to what the report contains or how it looks. Humbly, it's my job to enable someone else to do their job correctly and that requires no ego on my part except to do it as correctly and quickly as possible.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
July 20, 2015 at 11:17 am
GoofyGuy (7/20/2015)
The problem with BI is that "Business Intelligence" is frequently an oxymoron. No matter what the data is or how it is presented, the people that it's all provided/presented to actually need to use it to come to the correct conclusions and then take the correct actions. I can't speak for anyone else but I find that to frequently be a rarity.
'I find that frequently to be a rarity' ... sounds as if it's a bit of an oxymoron, too!
Heh... it DOES sound funny, doesn't it? 😛
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
July 20, 2015 at 11:20 am
😉
July 20, 2015 at 11:59 am
Why not learn Power Pivot too? It's not THAT hard. I know that many of us are allergic to Excel (from an end-user perspective) but Power Pivot is actually SQL (in-memory SSAS tabular) and there are many benefits to having it in your tool kit. The core skill is understanding relational data, which is old hat for most of us.
July 20, 2015 at 1:01 pm
I am developer and often put my quick observations in excel and do some formatting to make it look better. Then I copy this into the email. I do this even for shortest observations. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words. The question for me now is how to give a big-better picture to generalize/centralize and I see always tough since it needs understanding of bigger things which takes more time than what is needed for that small task. The easy way for me to do is only when such requests come from higher management.
Thanks,
Naveen.
Every thought is a cause and every condition an effect
July 20, 2015 at 1:13 pm
Most of the people I work with are data driven. I'm not actually designing the reports. They are being designed for me and I do my part to make them come to life.
I don't really see a use for me as the backend guy wearing multiple hats to design reports. That's not my role because I am not the analyst and so forth using the report. Majority of the reports I create are for someone else. Thus, I'm only following their design guidelines.
What's important for me to be successful is being able to model the data, write efficient queries and do the sexy visuals based on the guidelines given to me. It also requires me to question those designs when they don't really mend well with the backend systems such as SQL Server.
If I took the step of just designing whatever, I would be shooting in the dark on what is needed.
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