Third presentation in our seminar on business intelligence dashboards. Derek Murphy works for National Grid and related learning points from over 30 years experience of delivering business intelligence projects Presentation also available on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er90qIA2S7U

1. Business Intelligence Dashboards –
Horse meat or beef?
BCS Data Management Specialist Group - 21st March 2013

2. 03
A 30 Year Perspective on Business
Intelligence Projects
Derek Murphy, National Grid

3. A 30 Year Perspective on Business
Intelligence Projects
Derek Murphy

4. Agenda
 National Grid
 Me
 I Solemnly Swear…
 I‟m not paying for that….
 20 Million…..
 Lego or Origami…..
 Two Nations….
 Slips, Trips, Falls and Driving
 Big or Small
 Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
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5. National Grid
 International Electricity and Gas Company
 One of the largest investor-owned energy companies in
the World
 Vital role in providing energy to many millions of
customers across the UK and Northeast USA
 Efficiency, Reliability and Safety are critical to us.
 Committed to safeguarding the environment for future
generations.
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6. Derek Murphy
 I have worked in the Gas & Electric Industries for over 30 years
 For the first 5 years I was given gas, air and matches to play with.
 For the last 26 years I have worked in a variety of technical,
strategy and management roles within successive IS departments.
 The following examples are taken from my experiences during that
time.
 Where relevant I will seek to protect the identities of the innocent.
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7. I solemnly swear……
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8. I Solemnly Swear……..
 A post-Year 2000 Project – Single Version of the Truth
 A single source of information across the company
 Start with an easy area – how many people work for us?
 Well first of all, what do you mean by „people‟ and what do you mean
by „work for us‟, and what is the context of the question?
 Very quickly realised this was far from an easy choice, in fact it was
probably one of the most difficult choices
 As we began to answer the questions we began to realise our data
maintenance processes weren‟t up to speed.
 Lessons: The IS element was the easy bit. Gaining business
agreement about data definitions and understanding the robustness of
our data sources were far more difficult, and were probably where we
should have started. Oh, and don‟t forget the Turkeys
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9. I’m not paying for that……
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10. I’m not paying for that….
 Does anybody still use an IBM Mainframe?
 In the late 1980s we moved onto an IBM mainframe, but had to
internally re-bill processing time since it was so expensive.
 One day the Customer Services Manager approached me, protesting
against his charges, and telling me to get rid of this new email thing if
that was what it cost.
 It wasn‟t email at all, actually it was his staff running multiple “Filetab”
queries against copies of the Customer Service Database.
 Lesson: Don‟t underestimate the desire for information. Hardware has
become very cheap in recent years, but as we inexorably move
towards Cloud-based services are all the controls in place to prevent
runaway charges?
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11. UK Gas De-regulation
20M
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12. UK Gas De-Regulation 20M
 The end of the British Gas monopoly in the mid 1990s saw 20M people
able for the first time to choose their Gas Supplier.
 The data and processing volumes were beyond anything we or our
partners had previously experienced. At the time it was believed to be the
largest Oracle Database in Europe.
 We built an add-on „Operational Data Store‟ that was refreshed from the
eight production databases every night to support data queries because
the transactional systems couldn‟t have taken the load.
 We used Business Objects as the front-end
 The system was superseded in 2011, albeit having had a few facelifts in
the meantime!
Lesson: If the goal is clear enough and the prize big enough, man can move
mountains.
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13. Lego or Origami
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14. Lego or Origami
 Honeywell DCS – Control System (Lego)
 Honeywell PHD, pre-defined integration, standard reports, wealth
of additional capabilities, desktop reporting tool, complex decision
support capability, roadmap maintained by supplier.
 GIN/GSIS – Commercial Systems (Origami)
 3rd Party transaction system supported by custom-developed
reporting system.
 Two different developers, keeping the interface up to date, dealing
with data fixes, differences in availability specifications, fault
finding, is it in one system, is it in the other, or is it between?
Continual need to develop and maintain own roadmap.
 Lesson: Both routes can and do work successfully, but if you can, buy
it, it is a lot less effort and you will get more as a result.
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15. Two Nations, separated by…..
I said I know,
“Bow” you said
“Bough”
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16. Two Nations, separated by…
 For a Utility, efficient management of their assets is key. Condition-based
maintenance is one technique that can potentially assist with this..
 Intelligent Control Systems monitor condition data, so are a potentially rich
data source for Asset Managers.
 One of our businesses decided to investigate this, so the Control and
Asset Teams set about discussing type of assets they wanted to monitor
and the data that they wanted, e.g. running hours on pumps.
 But, were the two teams really talking the same language?
 Lesson: This has now all been fixed and Condition Data flows
automatically, but don‟t just assume everybody is speaking the same
language even if at first they appear to be.
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17. Slips, Trips and Falls
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18. Slips, Trips and Falls
 As you might expect, Safety is a priority agenda for National Grid.
 Those of you familiar with the DuPont Triangle will be understand the need
to report Hazards and Near Misses, which we have done for many years.
 National Grid has recently started to collect “Effective Safety Discussion”
data in its main Safety System. We have also started to post updates
about what is „trending‟ in the discussions and reports.
 IS can be perceived to be a relatively safe occupation, certainly by
comparison with say live working on a 400Kv overhead line.
 However, what do you think are the most frequently discussed items in the
main operational business? Yes, they are slips, trips and falls, all things
that are common with the IS department. So is the IS department really
that safe? It gives us all food for thought.
 Collecting and collating data is great, but insightful feedback can really
make a difference.
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19. Big or Small
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20. Big or Small
 So the perennial discussion, should everything be in an Enterprise-wide
data warehouse, or are we better off with lots of business-specific data
marts.
 I don‟t think there is one right answer, but my personal experience /
preference tends to favour data marts:
 Engenders local ownership
 More flexible to change / more resilient to failure.
 Lower cost, local systems typically cost less per head than enterprise systems
 Ability to exploit vendor-provided solutions, e.g. example of Honeywell PHD
 Against that is limited ability to report across data marts, and
 Potential solution duplication and application proliferation
 The most important thing is to understand what it is you are trying to
deliver. In the right circumstances an Enterprise solution may well be best,
in others multiple Data Marts may be the answer..
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21. Who wants to be a Millionaire?
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22. I Phoned my friend - Ian
 Very easy for these projects to get over excited and dream up all sorts of
reports that never get used;
 Strong change control and Robust business case challenge
 Sort out your data model early and incrementally build capability;
 Data is key – rubbish in rubbish out. Get some early wins – think big, start small
(i.e. big data model, incremental capability and value)
 Strong business engagement from people who really understand the
challenges and opportunities – not expert hobbyists.
 Look for BI requirements that manage real risks, offer real, deliverable
efficiency/opportunity
 Data quality is essential.
 Don‟t waste time cleansing your data until you have processes in place to keep
it clean
 Data cleansing will always take 3 times longer than you think it will.
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23. I asked the Audience - David
 So what is the Investment Case for Business Intelligence?
 Externally it can be around the way you engage with your customers, it is
part of the experience of dealing with you as a company
 Internally it is often a leap of faith – if you understand more about your
business you will be more efficient.
 In my experience the former is difficult to deny, but the latter can be
equally difficult to justify. It takes great commitment, and even then may
not get past the Finance Director.
 How do you measure understanding?
 What is the track record / reputation of BI – mixed at best?
 BI can be (very) expensive, it may never deliver an ROI
 When budgets come under pressure, BI is an easy target.
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24. Conclusion
 So, in conclusion I hope you have found the last half hour or so interesting,
and that you may have learnt something.
 To my knowledge National Grid and its predecessors have invested in
Business Intelligence Projects of many different sorts over the last 30
years.
 Like many companies we have had major successes, but on other
occasions things haven‟t always worked out the way we expected.
 Business Intelligence can provoke strong reactions. It can provide great
value and stunning insights. Equally however it can be very expensive and
fail to deliver on its original promise. I would suggest a key skill for BI
practitioners is identifying the former, and avoiding the latter.
 Thank you.
 Any Questions?
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