On Insights I: ‘Aha’ Moments On one side scientists talk about ‘Insight’ with a sign of reverence when referring to the processes, patterns, models, metaphors, stories and paradigms used to generate and communicate insight. Conversely, data professionals seem to regard ‘Insight’ as something trivial, achievable just by picking and combining the right visualizations and storytelling…

There’s No Free Lunch in Data Science: Top 10 Quotes "Consider any of the heuristics that people have come up with for supervised learning: avoid overfitting, prefer simpler to more complex models, boost your algorithm, bag it, etc. The no free lunch theorems say that all such heuristics fail as…

A Nail Keeps the Shoe Probably one of the most misunderstood aspects for businesses is the implications the adoption of a new technology have in terms of effort, resources, infrastructure and changes, these considered before, during and post-implementation. Unfortunately, getting a new BI tool or ERP system is not like buying a new car, even…

Data Access Once the data sources for a Data Migration (DM) were identified the first question is how the data can be accessed. The legacy systems relying on ODBC-based databases are in theory relatively easy to access as long they allow the direct access to their data, which would enable thus a…

Goals, Objectives & Requirements One of the nowadays’ challenges is finding the right mix of technologies that allows building a solution for a business need. There are so many choices and the responsible person is easily tempted to use one of the trending technologies just because he wants to learn something new or the…

Introduction When designing a Data Migration (DM), respectively any software solution, it’s important to take inventory of project’s requirements, evaluate, document, communicate and monitor them accordingly. Each of them can have an important impact on the solution, as a solution’s success will be validated and judged upon them. Therefore, the…

“The set of disciplines and methods to ensure the currency, meaning, and quality of a company’s reference data that is shared across various systems and organizations.” (Jill Dyché & Evan Levy, “Customer Data Integration”, 2006) “The framework of processes and technologies aimed at creating and maintaining an authoritative, reliable, sustainable…

“A set of quantitative and qualitative methods that support and guide the extraction of information and knowledge from data to solve relevant problems and predict outcomes.” (Xiuli He et al, “Supply Chain Analytics: Challenges and Opportunities”, 2014) “A collection of models, techniques and algorithms that focus on the issues of…

“The processes, policies, relationships, and mechanisms that ensure that information technology delivers business value while balancing risk and investment decisions. IT governance ensures accountability and provides rigor for managing IT capabilities in the context of a larger corporate governance framework.” (Evan Levy & Jill Dyché, “Customer Data Integration”, 2006) “IT…