by Angela Guess
A new article from Forbes reports, “In the world of business intelligence there are two broad categories of technology: Enterprise BI, which consists of the large systems that have been created to extract and consolidate information from the systems of record, answer pre-determined questions, and allow as much analysis as possible, given the state of the technology.”
It continues, “There is also a new crop of technology called Agile BI which is much more lightweight and responsive. This technology is inspired by the popularity of spreadsheets, which allow end-users to build what they want. Agile BI however provides a lot more help for the user in organizing, sorting, searching and displaying data than a basic spreadsheet. Agile BI is about user empowerment, exploration and visualization, giving the users the tools to ask questions directly.”
The article adds, “A traditional analyst’s maturity model for BI would contain a set of standards in terms of assessments around how well you’re implementing ETL, OLAP, data cubes and star schemas. With Agile BI, the stages involved in growing the capacity are not nearly as clear. But understanding how Agile BI arrives and spreads through an organization is a vital issue for anyone who is looking to create a culture of data-driven decision making, where information is pushed to the edges of the organization where the bulk of crucial decisions are made.”
photo credit: Brian K. Leadingham Photography
