Introduction: AI and the Blurring of Organizational Boundaries Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) is blurring the lines between functions in certain enterprises. For example, product designers can now contribute directly to code, while engineers can increasingly participate in product design decisions. In the world of data analytics, generative AI techniques like “conversational analytics” attempt to enable […]
Understanding the Insights Supply Chain The Insights Supply Chain describes how to lead data professionals and organize their teams to generate insights from data. This framework establishes organizing principles for empowering data professionals across a range of expertise and data domains. Just as the people of the Insights Supply Chain have profiles and personalities, the […]
For many years, I have used the Insights Supply Chain to frame my perspective on how organizations transform raw data into insights that support decision-making. This framework prioritizes strategies, processes, and methods without drawing boundaries solely around the roles of the people critical to its functioning. Along the way, I began using the term data […]
Colin Zima, CEO of business intelligence platform company Omni, crystallized for me the allergic reaction I had to Looker’s proposal to offer up Agentic Analytics to solve the problem of insufficient bandwidth for data analysts (see Agentic Analytics Cannot Lead: The Enduring Need for Data Professionals and Analytics Leadership). In an interview on DataFramed June […]
The Promise of Agentic Analytics In its latest Looker product announcement, Google unveiled “agentic analytics”—a term meant to capture the evolution of AI-powered business intelligence—at the core of its updated Looker platform. Through a blend of Gemini’s conversational AI and the Looker semantic layer, Google presents a future where business users interact with data as […]
Introduction In today’s enterprises, data serves as an essential asset for managing knowledge and informing decision-making. Yet, the process of transforming data into actionable insights can become fragmented, hindered by ad hoc collaboration and unclear ownership. The Insights Supply Chain provides a structured, knowledge-driven approach to addressing these challenges by integrating data workflows across specialized, […]
Introduction: Understanding the Loop of Demoralization During a client engagement, I partnered with a Business Analyst to conduct data discovery across multiple departments. Our mission? To establish trust in the data and enable better decision-making. In the midst of our interviews, one particular manager from a data function stood out. He was frustrated, exhausted, and […]
“We see people acting, but the constraints under which they are acting are largely invisible to us.”Professors Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton, “Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths & Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-Based Management” (2006) In my analytics work and leadership, I use the above quote as a reminder that data can only reach so […]
In Google’s latest Gemini At Work webinar event, the company reviewed AI agents for Looker. Gemini is Google’s AI ecosystem.; Looker is its business intelligence (BI) platform. These artificial intelligence agents are data agents that assist users at each step along the path of transforming data into insights. I am intrigued by Google’s seductive promise […]
