»Me, myself and BI«

Bissantz ponders


Friday, March 16th, 2012

The Wall (part III)

We have to turn our databases inside out. As long as we are only saving (and not using) information, the time and effort we have spent producing and storing it was all for nothing. Read more about these and other findings from our large-screen monitor projects…

Friday, February 17th, 2012

The Wall (part II)

Last time, we unveiled the secret of our monitor wall. Today, we’ll go one room further and show you what else you can do with a wall full of on-screen parameters – besides, of course, stealing the show from the PowerPoint people.

Friday, January 20th, 2012

The Wall (part I)

Actually, we wanted to keep this to ourselves a bit longer. But before someone else copies it and takes all the credit, we’re announcing it now: Peeking through the keyhole is out. Panoramic views are the future way of working in financial controlling…and elsewhere.

Friday, December 23rd, 2011

Spreading the word against lopsided graphics

Our August post on a botched-up scale in a “Spiegel” graphic has made some waves. A magazine for infographic designers picked up on our arguments and dedicated a two-page spread to the topic – with a certain finesse that you could even apply to management reporting.

Friday, December 2nd, 2011

Sum up and spell

Controllers are supposed to be consultants. Their reports are supposed to have a message – ideally, in the title as well as in the comments and summaries. Today, we’ll learn how to formulate messages appositely with some tips from Wolf Schneider.

Friday, November 11th, 2011

You can close your eyes but not your ears

Managers receive more information than they can take in. In fact, their information absorption capacity is the main bottleneck in Business Intelligence. Here are a few ways we can increase it.

Friday, October 21st, 2011

A SUCCESS story

Together with Rolf Hichert, we have been battling against graphical opulence and anorexic content in reporting since 2007. Recently, we hosted our tenth, joint Advanced Seminar on Industrial Reporting in Nuremberg. That makes it time to reflect on Hichert’s SUCCESS concept and our Industrial Reporting.

Friday, September 30th, 2011

King ROI and Lady BI

People often talk big when they talk about BI. Exaggerations go along with the hype but they remain what they are: exaggerated. Today, we are going to talk back – about the ROI that BI can deliver.

Friday, September 9th, 2011

Simply wrong is downright difficult

Logarithmic cynics, get ready for part 2 of our U.S. national debt analysis and our continuing crusade for charts with integrity. Today, we will give the final death blow to linear scales.

Friday, August 19th, 2011

Line straight wrong

People say that whether you use a logarithmic scale or a linear one for the development of national debt, the world population or the global climate depends on what you want to show. Wrong, we say. Linear scales regularly mislead.

Essays

Death to business charts!
Why business charts must die

Graphic tables
Lay back and control

Industrial reporting
Production-like efficiency for management reporting

Can we drive companies
like we do cars?

Against dashboards, speedometers and traffic lights in Controlling

Business Intelligence 2.0
modest, serious, sincere

Rediscovering slowness
Sparklines make us John Franklins in management information.

Good reporting is boring
Looking for excitement?
Try a night on the town instead.

Are sports fans smarter
than managers?

Management reports need to become more dense and dashboards more rare

The myth of data mining
Why men don't buy beer and diapers at the same time.

Numerical blindness?
I wouldn't see a doctor, if I were you.


DE