The Dashboard Effect

Click here to watch this episode on our YouTube channel . Click here to read the companion article. As part of our ongoing Expert Insight Series, Jon interviews Dain Johnson of Rev 0 Consulting. They discuss change management, especially as it relates to data initiatives. Blue Margin helps private equity owned and mid-market companies organize their data into dashboards to execute on strategy and...

Click here to watch this episode on our YouTube channel . In this episode, Brick and Caleb discuss the risks of trying to design and build everything you think you might ever need in a data warehouse in one single project. A faster, less expensive, and higher success rate approach is to start with smaller, high-value scope to start with, and then add on to it over time as reporting needs present t...

Click here to watch this episode on YouTube. In the second episode of our series on BI project management, Brick interviews Jennie Swenson, Director of the PMO for Blue Margin, to discuss resource planning during a BI project. They discuss the factors to consider in initially assigning work to engineers, and the things that might cause the need for changes during project execution. Blue Margin hel...

Click here to watch this episode on our YouTube channel . In this episode, Brick and Caleb discuss a potential approach for companies using an outside vendor for BI, to bring that function in house. It comes down to hiring the right resources at the right intervals, and giving them critical support and training while they ramp up. Blue Margin helps private equity owned and mid-market companies org...

Click here to watch this episode on YouTube. In this first episode in a series on BI project management, Brick interviews Anne Eisenach, Senior Project Manager, to discuss the first critical steps in a BI project, strategic and tactical scoping. If you get these right, you set yourself up for a smooth BI project, delivering on the desired ROI and goals, and staying in sync with the key stakeholder...

Click here to view this episode on YouTube. In today's podcast, Jon interviews Sean Edmonson of Tecum Capital Partners (private equity) as part of our ongoing Expert Insight Series. They discuss the value of data and the premium Tecum puts on having good BI to drive portfolio company success. They also discuss Tecum's approach to investing and what the current climate might mean for them...

Click here to view this episode on YouTube. Brick and Caleb discuss considerations for when you're hiring a BI visualization engineer. It can be tricky to hire the right one, and they offer some tips on things to look (and look out) for. Here are some of the tools we use to drive discussions and assess technical ability for potential visualization engineer hires: Client Facing Requirements Ga...

Brick and Greg discuss how good BI can help private equity firms to find and generate alpha in their portfolio company investments. Blue Margin helps private equity owned and mid-market companies organize their data into dashboards to execute on strategy and create a culture of accountability. We call it The Dashboard Effect, the title of our book and podcast .   Visit Blue Margin's library o...

Brick and Caleb discuss the Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics service. They cover the parts of it most likely to be used for doing good BI, and touch on why it's a good choice over patching together several unrelated tools. Blue Margin helps private equity owned and mid-market companies organize their data into dashboards to execute on strategy and create a culture of accountability. We call...

Brick and Caleb discuss the challenge of consolidated reporting, especially from recent mergers or acquisitions, and how using a data lake can bring quick reporting and analysis wins. They also discuss how using a data lake can ease the process of merging subsidiaries onto a central ERP (or CRM, etc.) system. Blue Margin helps private equity owned and mid-market companies organize their data into...

Brick, Blue Margin's founder and CEO, and Sarah Martinez, one of Blue Margin's Lead Data Visualization Consultants, discuss time intelligence in BI. They talk about the importance of constructing and using a date dimension, and some of the tricks to create reports for different time periods (e.g., yesterday, month-to-date, user-defined time period, etc.) without having to write scores of...

Jon Thompson hosts founder and CEO of Notch Partners , Andy Thompson, to discuss matching deals to executives (and vice versa) in the PE world. Notch Partners is a boutique executive talent consultancy retained by leading private equity firms such as Advent, Charlesbank, Warburg Pincus, and AEA. Notch Partners creates competitive advantage for PE firms by “cultivating high-impact relationships tha...

In addition to Jon's theory of the Brontosaurus, Brick and Jon discuss their view that the root of all business problems is lack of clear visibility. Blue Margin helps private equity and mid-market companies organize their data into dashboards, to support strategy execution and create a culture of accountability. We call it The Dashboard Effect, the title of our book and podcast .   Visit Blu...

Brick sits down with Greg Brown, one of Blue Margin's consultants, to discuss the critical question in BI. How do you get the right information, to the right person, at the right time, in order to best drive good outcomes. Greg has a very early automated BI example from IBM in the 1950's, and also explains a more recent example of how McDonald's uses up-to-the-minute BI to reinforce...

Brick, Blue Margin's founder and CEO, and Kate, Director of Consulting, discuss discuss BI in the legal field. They've worked with several large law firms and point out some of the key considerations in terms of metrics and reporting. Blue Margin helps private equity and mid-market companies organize their data into dashboards, to support strategy execution and create a culture of accoun...

Brick and Caleb discuss the best practice of understanding likely reporting needs before architecting a data warehouse, versus just pulling all of the data into the data warehouse. It's OK to have all of the data pulled into a Persisted Staging area, or into a data lake, but overengineering the data warehouse and reporting views and cubes lengthens the time to get to reports and can result in...

Brick and Caleb discuss low-code data connectors and when and why to use, or not use them. Blue Margin helps private equity and mid-market companies organize their data into dashboards, to support strategy execution and create a culture of accountability. We call it The Dashboard Effect, the title of our book and podcast .   Visit Blue Margin's library of additional BI resources here . For a...

Jon Thompson hosts technology and operations leader, Andy Scott , to discuss the role of data in business. Andy has 35 years of experience across multiple industries and organizations holding positions that include Chief Technology Officer, Chief Product and Technology Officer, Chief Information Officer, VP of Digital Product Management, and Board Director. He is known for his track record of deli...

Brick, Blue Margin's founder and CEO, and Courtney, Blue Margin's Quality Systems Manager, discuss the things you should focus on to make sure you're delivering high-quality BI, both from the data side and from the visualization side. Blue Margin helps private equity and mid-market companies organize their data into dashboards, to support strategy execution and create a culture of a...

Brick and Caleb discuss the unique data needs of mid-market companies in the approximately $50M to $2B revenue range. Blue Margin helps private equity and mid-market companies organize their data into dashboards to support strategy execution and create a culture of accountability. We call it The Dashboard Effect, the title of our book and podcast .   Visit Blue Margin's library of additional...

Brick and Caleb discuss the topic of Master Data Management (MDM) for analytical data. It's conceptually simpler than it might at first seem, but takes commitment to implement and maintain. No Snickers bars were harmed in the making of this episode. Blue Margin helps private equity and mid-market companies organize their data into dashboards to support strategy execution and create a culture...

Brick and Caleb discuss a BI project that had an unexpected, but very welcome payoff. Blue Margin helps private equity and mid-market companies organize their data into dashboards to support strategy execution and create a culture of accountability. We call it The Dashboard Effect, the title of our book and podcast .   Visit Blue Margin's library of additional BI resources here .  For a free,...

Brick, Blue Margin's founder and CEO, and Bryan, a Blue Margin Consultant, discuss the downsides of manual reporting and the upsides of automated reporting. They also discuss how to get going on automated reporting without breaking the bank. Blue Margin helps private equity and mid-market companies organize their data into dashboards, to support strategy execution and create a culture of acco...

Brick and Caleb discuss some of the many ways that Power BI and the Microsoft Azure platform work together so well. Power BI can do reporting well from most data systems, but when it is paired with the services in Azure, a lot of additional capabilities are made easy to do. Blue Margin helps private equity and mid-market companies organize their data into dashboards to support strategy execution a...

In this episode, Brick and Caleb discuss some of the things to avoid when building a dashboard, whether for yourself or for a business. They cover approximately ten important items to consider. (It sounded like they could have kept going, so we may need to get them to do a sequel!) Blue Margin helps private equity and mid-market companies organize their data into dashboards to support strategy exe...