The Dashboard Effect

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...

Brick and Caleb discuss low and no code ETL tools, sometimes referred to as "enterprise service bus" or ESB or eBus. They point out some of the common pros and cons to think about when considering using one of these tools. 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...

Brick, Blue Margin's founder and CEO, and Caleb, Vice President of Delivery Operations, discuss some of the most common situations where it makes sense to skip the data warehouse and instead do your analysis and reporting without it. Blue Margin helps private equity and mid-market companies organize their data into dashboards, to support strategy execution and create a culture of accountabili...

Brick, Blue Margin's founder and CEO, and Kate, Director of Consulting, discuss how to think about what an appropriate budget might be for BI projects. They get into considerations around ROI and business impact, and also whether to do the work internally or potentially an outside partner. Blue Margin helps private equity and mid-market companies organize their data into dashboards, to suppor...

Brick sits down with Greg Brown, one of Blue Margin's consultants, to discuss accountability in business and how BI can play a big role in creating a culture of accountability. Brick references the book, The Game of Work, by Charles Coonradt. Here's the link to its Amazon listing . And here's the link to the author's business website. Blue Margin helps mid-market companies orga...

Brick sits down with Jennie Swenson, Blue Margin's Director of the PMO, to discuss the project management approach she and her PMs take to delivering successful BI projects. Visit our podcast website at https://podcast.thedashboardeffect.com

Brick and Caleb discuss Blue Margin's shift from time-and-materials to fixed-price billing. The change has materially improved the outcomes of their projects for clients and for Blue Margin. Some of the benefits are not intuitively obvious but will make sense to most billing professionals. For a great resource on fixed-price billing, check out Jonathan Stark . His focus is more on "value...

Brick and Caleb discuss the different types of data sources you might run into when building reports or a data warehouse. They also talk about approaches for combining data from different systems and dealing with data redundancy. This one gets a little bit technical. For further reading: Succeed with BI: Manage Data Sources, Integration, and Redundancy (bluemargin.com)

Jon Thompson, Cofounder and Chief Strategy Officer at Blue Margin, sits down with Jill Belconis, career CEO at Shelter Mortgage turned strategic business coach. They discuss taking an offensive stance during cyclical economic downturns, focusing on your “one thing,” using a job scorecard (BI) for accountability, not going it alone, and overcoming resistance when creating a data-driven culture. For...

Brick and Caleb discuss how an organization can quickly start doing real BI. Getting going is easier than you might think, but there are a few key things to keep in mind. For further reading: The Quick Path to Winning with Data and Dashboards (bluemargin.com)

Brick and Caleb discuss why a BI project can and should be much more agile than something like an ERP implementation, delivering results and value quickly. For further reading: Starting a BI Initiative? Choose Agile Over Waterfall (bluemargin.com)

Brick and Will discuss the significant benefits of spending time up front on report design before jumping into the reporting tool to do the actual build.

Brick and Caleb discuss defining the impact a BI effort is expected to deliver so you can decide whether it is worth the effort or can be achieved in a simpler way. For further reading: 2 Essential Ingredients of Successful Data Projects (bluemargin.com)

Brick and Caleb discuss the importance of aligning on the definition of metrics. It seems obvious, but can be tricky if you're not careful. For further reading: 2 Essential Ingredients of Successful Data Projects (bluemargin.com)

Brick and Kate discuss the different roles within a company that typically own the BI function and some of the potential pros and cons of each.

Brick and Caleb discuss the pros and cons of tackling your BI project using outside help versus doing all of the work with an internal team. Read more here: When to Use an External BI Consultant (bluemargin.com)

Brick and Caleb discuss the "modern data warehouse" and what distinguishes it from the traditional data warehouse. 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 addit...

Brick and Caleb discuss the reasons they feel Power BI is almost always the right choice for your BI tool. 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...

Brick and Caleb discuss performing diligence around data maturity of an organization prior to purchase. For further reading: How To Assess Acquisition Value Through Data Diligence (bluemargin.com) 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 ti...