My associates know that the only thing I love more than a good analogy is a great analogy. We were doing a presentation for a company and some of the attendees did not quite understand why reporting and analytics can be so difficult. One of their IT guys spoke up and said;
“Think of Infohrm as sort of like a grocery store. The store has all of the products, but needs some sort of framework of where to put everything they have. This is like our data – we have tons of data everywhere, but no way to organize it and no logical way to think about it. Just like what a grocery store does – having shelves ready for certain products, signs in areas, etc. – this is what Infohrm does when it takes our data. They already have all of this built and everything just slides in where it is supposed to so we can now find, and use, data.”
My mind went into overdrive; this wasn’t good, this was great. Having spent years at IBM in Data Integration I have seen quite a few mammoth data warehouse projects; each one more resource intensive than the last. It is not that the process is that complicated, it’s that you have to have a system to understand where everything goes in addition to tools to get it there. I was always impressed with a 16 year old stock clerk’s ability to tell you exactly and immediately where an obscure item was at the grocery store; “Condensed milk?…aisle four, half way down on the left…” Turns out, it isn’t memorization, it’s an understanding of the schematics of the store layout, an understanding of the particular item and a understanding of where the item came from. Our Infohrm team does the same thing when we get data from our members; what kind of data is this? What system did it come from? Where does it go? To us it’s just data; Infohrm knows where to put it so that it can be found easily and quickly. Of course, real analytical value usually comes from combining different data sources.
Now it gets fun. Business leaders want answers, not data. In the same way I want a cheeseburger, not a bag of groceries. I don’t want to hear, “Oh, cheese is in the dairy system but buns are in the bread system. We could federate all of the ingredients in a SOA architecture to make it seem like you are eating a cheeseburger”. Business leaders want to know; “How many people did we recruit, hire, and train only to have them leave before they became profitable to the company? What did that cost us? How can we do a better job?” See where this is going? They don’t want to hear “This is in PeopleSoft, that is on the mainframe, Taleo has that info…” They want answers that will help them manage the company more efficiently.
People light-heartedly ask us about the “secret sauce” at Infohrm. I respond by saying, “thirty years of experience”. It’s a combination of understanding the data and the source systems on one side and understanding how the data supports the needs of the business on the other. Infohrm is truly unique in this way.
I should probably add that like food, some data is perishable and needs to be refreshed on a regular basis. However, now I really do want a cheeseburger. Stay tuned for “How old data can spoil your report” and “Top 10 recipes (metrics) based on your tastes (industry)”
I loved your cheeseburger analogy. At times,we are pulling all the ingredients (data) from different systems, so we have the same make up as a cheeseburger, but we don’t always get it pulled together to eat it AS a cheeseburger. Not quite as appetizing is it?
I look forward to your Top 10 Recipes. We update our Workforce Key Performance Indicators (KPI) on an annual basis to keep them not only fresh, but relevant to the business need. Keep cooking…
Yes, a great analogy! Thanks for sharing this insight!
Nive blog Joe. Your analogy concisely talks about the challenges companies face in getting the data in shape to leverage into HR analytics and predictive modelling.