|
In summary – too much data, infatuation with easy-to-use visuals that aren’t supported by sound analytics, reliance on stastics without the aid of graphs.
1). Data Overload - Organizations have become overwhelmed with the growing amount of data they must analyze. The advent of dashboards was the the first attempt to address this issue. The belief was, if you could distill your data to several key indicators, all you needed to do was monitor those indicators to run your business. But such summarized metrics don’t tell a complete enough story. The devil is in the details. Organizations quickly learned that dashboards could actually conceal important information because viewers weren’t able to see what lay benearth them. There was more value in being able to spot patterns and trends in the unsummarized data. But they don’t necessarily understand that they can visualize more. They may think it’s too difficult. So they tend to stick with summarized data, even though they may make wrong decisions from over-simplification.
2). Time and resource commitment - It takes time and resources to gather, cleanse, then analyize data. Many organizations are too tactical and don’t see the benefit of investing, or worse, are caught in a state of being reactive.
3). Inertia – Many organization are reluctant to change. They still cling to running their business by gut feel or the way they’ve always done it, not recognizing that new approaches may be needed. Those days are gone. Fewer organizations believe this is the best way anymore, but different levels of adoption remain throughout the organization.
4). Ineffecitve tools - Vendors who only focus on visuals have done a dis-service by misleading organizations into thinking they only need pretty pictures and that will solve their problems. Graphs may look nice, but are inferior because they are not substantive and not based on analysis. There are so many tools on the market—everything from the over simplistic (e.g. Excel) to the over complicated (e.g. custom code). Organizations are typically seduced by the easy-to-use, highly visual solutions.
5). Tactical solution over strategic solution. Many organization have a disconnect between their overall strategy and how they implement that strategy. They don’t monitor the right data to support that strategy because they haven’t connected the right measure to their goals and objectives.
6). Many organizations either have little appreciation for statistics that are essentional to support their graphical analysis, or value statistics without supporting graphs. Both of these types of organizations are missing an important compliment to efficient and effective analysis. They need both visuals and statistics; they compliment each other and when combined provide synergies and time savings.
|
