1. PerformVolume 7 / Issue 2 / 10Information in ActionThe Future of theScorecardPerformance Management:Past, Presentand FutureLetters from the Publisher andEmergency Response .............. 22Building Sustainable PerformanceEditor .................................... 2 By John Katsoulis and Seema HajiManagement Frameworks.... 41By Kaye KendrickThe Future of the Scorecard PSEG Leverages Actuate to ReduceBy Jeff Perkins........................ 3 Costs and Increase Productivity 25Bridging the Finance-OperationalPublic Service Enterprise Group Gap ....................................... 44In this issue > The Smart Statement..............Xenos10Top-Notch Performance........28By David F. GiannettoPromaco ConsultingActuate Excellence Awards .... 50How to Spot a Bad Strategy..15By Mark Graham BrownExpanded Opportunity.........31 Coachs Corner...................... 52Prudential plcBy Catie SirieTheRoadto World-ClassCommissioning..................... 19 A Clearer View ....................... 34Reading Room...................... 54NHS South of Tyne and WearIBM Rational ClearQuest

2. From the PublisherAt Actuate, 2010 started off with some exciting news. TechWebs Intelligent Enterprise Editors ChoiceAwards were announced, and Actuate was named a 2010 Company to Watch in the Business Intelligence(BI) category, for creating and leading the Eclipse BIRT project and supporting the developer community.The awards look at companies that innovate, even in the tough times weve seen in the past year. Ourinnovation and ability to continually evolve are things that Actuate take special pride in, and were pleasedthat the editors at Intelligent Enterprise would recognize that too.While were on the subject of innovation and evolution, weve been doing exactly that recently at Actuate evolving. In fact, with just the first quarter of 2010 behind us, were already a different company than wewere in 2009. And the biggest change has certainly been adding a new member to the Actuate family:Xenos, the leader in Online Presentment and Document Storage Reduction. But thats not the only thingweve accomplished so far this year we also did amazing work launching BIRT Performance Scorecard 9, BIRT Mobile for theiPhone and Xenos Accessibility.Now were getting underway with this years Actuate Excellence Awards, which is an exciting opportunity for us to reward theamazing innovations of our own clients. You can read more about those on page 50. And as usual, theres a lot of great informationin this issue of Perform. I hope you enjoy it and can apply it to your own lives.Best,Rich GuthRich GuthVice President & General Manager Open Source Strategy GroupFrom the EditorI recently came across an inspiring article about a gentleman in Malawi who was intent on providingThe Future of theelectricity to his country one windmill at a time. Hes built three so far, put together with anything hecould get his hands on, and hes become a local hero because just one of them generates enough powerfor a television, the lights in his family home and more incredibly his local villagers can use it to powertheir cell phones.The storys theme played out in my mind over and over again, reminding me that simple ideas can have aSCORECARDtremendous impact. Each year Actuate recognizes great ideas in our own environment. And although weare not focused on the same goals as that man in Malawi, we also think we have our own group of heroes our customers, who come up with great ideas every day.For 2010 we honor these ideas through our Excellence Awards, with three areas of excellence, outlinedon page 50 of this issue of Perform. While the first two categories may seem familiar to you BIRT Implementation Excellenceand Scorecard Excellence the third honors the newest member of the Actuate family, Xenos. Xenos is the leader in OnlinePresentment and Document Storage Reduction and were excited to have them join us. You can read more about Xenos in TheBy Jeff Perkinshealthy or not. And then theres you, searching high and lowSmart Statement on page 10, the first of a three-part series.Vice President and General Manager for a piece of information that will better inform how you doPerform Magazine // Information in ActionWI hope you enjoy everything weve put together in this issue of Perform, from Jeff Perkins The Future of the Scorecard (page 3) Actuate Performance Management Solutions your job. But it doesnt exist, at least not definitively. There iswhich explores how Performance Management has evolved in his 14 years in the business to Mark Graham Browns How to Spotno single version of the truth.a Bad Strategy (page 15) and David Giannettos Bridging the Finance-Operations Gap (page 44). Actually, were pretty excited eve all worked at that organization.about all of the contributions to this issue of Perform we hope you are too.You know the one: the place where you have When I started in the Performance Measurement andBest Regards, to go searching everywhere for information,Management business 14 years ago, that organization was Vol 7. Issue 2 . 2010for every single piece of data. But you look inmost every organization. And that was why we were doingJohn Katsoulis10 different places and you get 10 differentanswers. There is no single system of record for key, vital statistics what we were doing, because we were looking to improve on the status quo. We wanted to help people measure to track the vital indicators that tell you whether your organization isthings like actual versus budget, actual versus benchmark, etc.John Katsoulis2 Perform Editor3 3. data more effectively to manage your organization. Companies tall and small, public or private and for all levels of thoseare also moving away from the traditional report card approach,organizations. Its an attitude that we think meshes nicely with About the AuthorTheres been a vital With a solid background in systems engineering, productrealizing that when employees feel like they are being judgedor graded constantly held up to the scrutiny of their peers this new evolution of Performance Management culture, but its one that differs from some of our competitors, who vary and dramatic shift in the management, sales, and sales management, Jeff Perkinsthey dont always feel secure or happy in their jobs. No wondermany of them werent on board with the early performance across the board but dont quite have that same attitude. Some think Performance Management belongs strictly in past years; a shift from aoversees the worldwidePerformance Management Solutions team at Actuate. After spending eight successful measurement initiatives! the financial domain, to be practiced exclusively by the folks performance measurement years as Performancesofts Chief Technology Officer, JeffToday, though, were seeing organizations calling people from that are financially oriented; others see it only as being for the a 14-year Performance Management Software veteran upper-echelon senior management. On that, we disagree.far-flung regions of their company because theyve been culture to a Performancenow works closely with Actuates engineering and product performing well on a particular metric. Theyre calling them No matter where I stand on the companys totem pole, after Management culture. management groups to ensure that all Actuate Integrated Performance Management solutions remain the mostin to help mentor and coach coworkers who are strugglingon the same metric, and theyre doing it in a collaborative all, I may be accountable for a business result or metric. And if I am, its important for me to be able to drill down into the innovative and user-friendly on the market.environment with great respect. Its a more scorecard-oriented underlying operational detail of that metric, so that I canapproach, where the idea isnt to cast blame but to look instead understand whats really going on behind the scenes. Someoneat why certain metrics are performing below target, somethingabove me isnt going to necessarily need to go into as muchthat often has very explainable extenuating circumstances. detail as I am, so theyll drill down to a much less detailed level; and to allow them to use those statistics and ratios during Performance Management vs. MeasurementIf you look at the Actuate BIRT Performance Scorecard today, theyre focused on the big picture and dont have the timethe course of their jobs, to hopefully do those jobs better.for example, theres room for commentary and annotations,or need to go down to the most minute level of detail. But inWeve come a long way, dude.allowing metric owners to capture their knowledge, so that theyPerformance measurement still allows for that today. my role on the front lines, I need that information to do myIn its infancy days, performance measurement was just that: a can explain whats going on behind the numbers. Its a different job well. Its why we dont think a company is making full useBut its amazing how much something can change in a decadeway of measuring performance at all levels of an organization approach, and it makes each employee along the chain a partof a Performance Management system of its potential andand a half. Back then, performance measurement was still newand of keeping an eye on what was happening in the companyof the process, not simply the fall guy if something goes wrong. possibilities if theyre leaving it as the exclusive domain ofand finding its footing. To succeed, we saw that visionariestrenches, so to speak. Which is fine, but many Id say most In other words, its no longer a shame-and-blame system, but upper-tier executives.within the organization often someone senior needed toof the metrics being measured then were financial (since theinstead one of constant collaboration and improvement.champion the cause; to push it through, sometimes amidst Thats one competitive differentiator of Actuate, and it translatesmanagement systems themselves were all based on financial Actuates Approachopposition from those who didnt understand it or simply into what we offer. Our BIRT Performance Scorecard offersmetrics) so most of the time companies only really had a smalldidnt like the idea of being measured. And that often meantActuates approach to Performance Management is this: we different capabilities for different types of users at differentglimpse at what was happening. And they couldnt react verythat even the best performance measurement program, while think its for everyone, plain and simple. Its for all organizationslevels of an organization. Other differentiators include:quickly to any changes, either not when they only lookedstarted with the greatest intentions, often had some inherentat those metrics every six months or maybe once a quarter. Aproblems: a top-down approach that left those lower on thevery frequent measure then may have been monthly; today, itstotem pole feeling alienated by a new system; or a report card-likely to be daily or even hourly.style view of measurement that again left many employeesfeeling nervous and blamed. It was no wonder that someThats not the only change weve seen either. Instead of justprograms failed.tracking the data, organizations are now using it, and theyreusing it on a daily basis, to manage and move themselvesTheres been a vital and dramatic shift in the past years,forward. Its no longer just executives taking the drivers seatthough; a shift from a performance measurement cultureeither; that top-down approach, which never worked well,to a Performance Management culture. And the chief aim ofis gone and in most places weve seen it replaced with ana Performance Management culture is no longer just aboutorganization-wide approach instead. Metrics outside of financehaving all of that relevant data in one place although thatshave been embraced, so there are more subjective measuresimportant too its also about being able to use that data inbeing adopted including qualitative measures, as well asa meaningful way, to build your business. To see clearly thosePerform Magazine // Information in Actionleading or predictive measures to balance the financially-areas that need to be worked on and to benefit as much asskewed outcome measures, which are still important but onlypossible from those things that, as an organization, you doshow part of the picture.well and from the people who own those thriving metricsand are helping them excel. Its a more collaborative culture,In other words, its an entire shift in culture, from measurementone thats less quick to blame. And its a culture that Actuate to management. If youre looking at data thats been recordedVol 7. Issue 2 . 2010fits into nicely, because our approach to measurement and daily or hourly as opposed to that which might be six monthsmanagement has always been one where everyone works old already youre able to react to it more quickly, to nimblytogether towards the same goals.navigate through any problems that might exist and to use that[ Figure 1.1: Briefing Books display information from multiple scorecards and allow users to drill down to understandperformance trends via color-coded interactive display and user commentary. ]45 4. Time to value. Companies want to know how long it will learning mode, trying to figure out how to get the features that take before they start getting value from a system. And thea purpose-built application already has; and chances are, as Actuate team, over its years in the business, has realized talented as they may be in their own area of focus, they will never that the only way to be successful is to be able to deliverbe able to build something with the same level of functionality, value quickly. One of our leading sales propositions is oursince their core strengths arent in Performance Management. In time to value, measured in a small number of weeks rather than in months or years.the meantime, strategic resources like IT personnel, technicalresources and management are distracted and arent focusing Performance Management: The simplicity of replicating metrics. Its incredibly simple inon core duties that are key to the companys bottom line. Time The Top Three Persistent Pain Pointsis lost as they try to create and later maintain a Performance the BIRT Scorecard to replicate a metric across multipleManagement system; theyll never be able to give 100 percent organizational units. This is accomplished with minimalWhat havent changed all that much, even as the culture of Performance Management and Measurement hasto their own business. A purpose-built product like BIRT effort in BIRT Scorecard because of the dimensionality progressed significantly, are the pain points our customers come to us with. Actuate sees them day in and day out,Scorecard embodies years of Actuate and customer experience of the product, which helps in being able to find best and they can stall a Performance Management initiative or stop it from meeting its potential. These are the top threein Performance Management automation; something a home- practices and to identify areas that are under-performingpain points we encounter:grown system cannot hope to achieve. quite quickly, even on the same metric.The Future of the ScorecardThese are the key differentiators that Actuate brings to the1. You dont have the proper tools. There will always be some companies who try the low-cost approach toIf theres one thing that you can always count on, its change.table, and that our customers tell us have been deal breakers in measurement. They know Performance Management can be important to their organization, but they figureAnd if Ive seen Performance Management culture change sotheir decision to choose BIRT Scorecard for their Performancethey can do a good enough job of it by measuring their company performance using personal productivitydramatically in the last 14 years, I know Im going to see justManagement initiative. tools like those in the Microsoft Office suite: Excel, PowerPoint, Access, etc. Those are all perfectly good tools,as much change or even more in the next 14. Predicting dont get me wrong, but theyre not designed for Performance Management. A companys PerformanceOn the flip side, some organizations that are technically inclinedexactly where that change is going to happen isnt an exact Management program can quickly become unmanageable and unmaintainable without a purpose-builtsometimes decide that they can build their own Performancescience, but there are a few things that were already seeing that package, one thats meant for sharing and has reliability and multi-use capabilities built in. Theres a reason whyManagement application. Since theyre not in the business ofI think will be crucial in how Performance Management plays do-it-yourself initiatives ultimately collapse under their own weight.Performance Management themselves, theyre always left in out in the years to come:2. You cant find the right data. Data, data, data it all comes down to data, and whether you have the right data or not. With the proliferation of multiple enterprise systems, and the proclivity of businesses to merge and acquire, we find that any particular organization and this goes for government as well as the private sector has multiple source systems and multiple data formats. And in order to measure and manage properly, companies need to be able to reliably capture that data and to bring it into a system that is data-source agnostic. Weve found that the ability for a system to sit on top of and to be independent of the data sourcing really future-proofs it from any changes that might happen due to mergers and acquisitions, or from changes to corporate or organizational strategy.3. You cant get support. The culture around a Performance Management initiative can make it or break it. So take a look at your organization: Is your initiative being used as the stick or the carrot? Is it engaging users at all levels? If you push a Performance Management initiative down from the top tell employees this is what you have to measure it rarely ever succeeds. Instead, collaborative design is the most effective way of getting support; you go out and work with the people who are accountable, who own the metrics, and ask them what they need in order to measure and manage their part of the business. If they truly have ownership and can seePerform Magazine // Information in Action how their metric aligns with what the organization is trying to accomplish, then its easier to get that buy-in that is so crucial to success. And the benefits of doing that right are fantastic; it lends to better decision making all round and makes organizations more able to react to changing market conditions. Vol 7. Issue 2 . 20106 7 5. It wont be long before Performance Managementoffices and desks are becoming a thing of the past so pervasively invades all portions of organizationsthe ability to get performance information regardless of operations. So it wont be an afterthought anymore: whenwhere you are, no matter your mobile device, is becoming a company invests in a large administrative system like anincreasingly important. ERP system, the metrics portion will be built right in. Thats Actuates stated objective and goal as we move forward is to good news, since it means sourcing data wont be nearly maintain state-of-the-art leadership, driven by the blending of a the same problem it has been in the past. very strong metrics calculation engine that does all of the heavy There will be mass changes to the visualization oflifting work, with a strong and easy-to-use visual interface. Well performance information. Its an area where Actuate isbuild on that in the future through increased mobilization and strong, and it will become more and more important as collaboration, and through self-serve performance information society becomes even more computer oriented and getsportals. I cant give anything away as to what were working on used to strong, simple and intuitive interfaces. Well seenow, but look for things to be faster and better in the future, applications we use in our work life mimic those we use for a system that is able to take on even larger Performance at home, influenced by things like social networking andManagement applications. There will be a continued focus on self-serve banking applications, which need zero training being able to link from the strategic or summarized level right and are easy to use. Some of thats already evident in thedown to the operating level. current BIRT Scorecard, but youll find all applications But on the other hand, expect us to take things in a few adopting that kind of design standard going forward. directions introduce some exciting new elements that Its the second wave of web-based Rich Information youve never even dreamt of. Surprises are definitely in the Applications. works. Because our job at Actuate isnt just to react to changes Finally, mobility will play a greater role in the Performance in the Performance Management culture. We create those Management world. People are increasingly mobile changes too.Perform Magazine // Information in Action Vol 7. Issue 2 . 2010 [ Figure 1.2: Strategy maps allow you to create graphical representations specific to your Performance Management initiative. ]8 9 6. TheSMARTSTATEMENTSay Good-bye to PaperStatements,Say Hello to OnlinePresentment Every year, companies are sending out more and more statements, claims, invoices and bills. Traditionally those statements have been nothing but a cost sink. But not anymore.Perform Magazine // Information in ActionVol 7. Issue 2 . 2010 1011Part One in a Three-Part Series on Xenos, an Actuate Company 7. Traditionally, statements have been sent through the mail, and its been a one-size-fits-all approach.Xenos has been a major player in organization has 100,000 or 10 million customers, they typically theEnterpriseInformation send out the same statement to their entire client base, not Management Space for overmaking any distinction based on demographics or personal25 years, during which time a unique mix of technology andcustomer preferences. At the same time, those same companiesexperience has positioned the company as an industry leader. Xenos may be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on onlineproducts and solutions can be found deep within the information or mail campaigns to target specific customer groups, trying toarchitectures of many of the worlds largest companies. Withretain their customer base by building brand recognition, or up-a global customer base of over 375 Tier 1 organizations, Xenos selling or cross-selling to their existing clients. Many customerssolutions are used to improve business processes, reduce operationalmay not even glance at those campaigns, but those samecosts, enhance customer experience and promote the benefits ofcustomers will look at their statements for an average of one toGreen IT. In February 2010, Xenos became an Actuate company.three minutes each month, and often more than once. Add tothat an open rate of 95 percent or more and those statementsThis is the first of a three-part series of articles on Xenos, an Actuaterepresent the perfect medium for those up-sells and cross-sellscompany. In this issue, Perform examines Xenos ePresentment, an an opportunity that, more often than not, is overlooked by theonline statement presentment offering. Part 2 will focus on Xenoscompanies sending them.solutions for document storage reduction, while Part 3 examineshow Xenos fits into the Actuate world.But thats not the only element of the statement thats ripefor change. First of all, the mail is no longer necessarily theIntroductionpreferred way of sending or receiving statements. Whether itsEvery year, companies can produce and send out millions of in an effort to be green, to reduce mailing costs, or to simplify these documents have taken any action to reduce the storageWith the aging of the baby boomers, accessibility is also morestatements, claims, invoices and bills. But could organizations the integration with their own personal electronic bookkeeping footprint. important than ever. There has been a movement towardsbe doing more with those statements? Could they be getting requirements, more and more people are requesting to receive creating documents in an accessible PDF format for the visually The Evolution of Online Presentmentbetter use out of them? And at the same time, could they be their statements online. To stay competitive, companies need to impaired and aging population. These PDFs are created withusing fewer resources to produce them, while making them offer that option.Besides the challenge of storage, traditional PDF documentstags to allow for the reading aloud of text, graphics andmore customer-focused? that simply reflect a print statement also come up short inimages. But soon, accessibility wont just be a nice to haveNot all online statements are created equal, though. The another area: performance. Customers in todays computer-feature. Rather, as baby boomers the largest segment of theIn other words, are companies wasting a prime opportunity?most common and basic way to create one is to simply takesavvy world expect to see their online statements when theypopulation age, the need for everything from large print toAfter all, statement generation typically done monthly a traditional printed statement and to transform it into a PDFwant them and how they want them. They want those online easily accessible documents is rapidly moving to become ais the most frequent contact most companies have with document without any changes. But statements that have documents to meet their needs and to be accessible however regulatory requirement. With this in mind, Xenos has recentlytheir customers. But in most cases, organizations ignore the been designed for print dont always translate well into thethey choose to look at them. Xenos ePresentment allows for this, announced a new addition to its ePresentment Enterprise Serverimportance of the experience their customers have with that online world; a PDF that mirrors a printed statement does little breaking up and saving PDF documents into their individual platform that will generate accessible PDFs for ePresentment.information, and how it relates back to the branding and to address the uniqueness of a companys customer database, components, to retrieve them as necessary, when necessary; This will go a long way in helping the visually impaired takemessaging they wish to convey. The result is that marketing it does little to address customers self-service needs, and itthis not only saves storage space but allows for branding andadvantage of client information and at the same time insuredepartments are not taking full advantage of those documents. doesnt do much to support companies marketing efforts. marketing information to be personalized based on customer that Xenos customers do not fall in breach of regulatory orBy dramatically changing the content reflecting specific profiles and to be constantly updated as needed and integratedPerform Magazine // Information in Action Traditional PDFs also can increase storage capacitylegal changes on the horizon.customer segments while getting their branding across they requirements and as a result increase capital and operational automatically when clients call up their statements online.could be benefiting from the marketing potential of documents Thats not all thats possible, either. Every day, new and more costs. A graphically rich document like a PDF file can easily With this model, changing customer needs can also be takenthat they have to generate and send out anyway. advanced adaptations of online presentment continue to reach 5 MB in size (as opposed to a more traditional text-into consideration. The growth of social networking and mobileemerge. Xenos ePresentment stays on the forefront, offeringThats where Xenos ePresentment comes in.based document, which ranges between 150 and 500 KB). technology usage, for example, means that output must becapabilities that include: The fully-burdened cost is between $20 and $30 per GB per adapted for much smaller-format devices, including netbooksVol 7. Issue 2 . 2010The Traditional Approach month to sustain digital storage. Multiply that cost over several and smartphones. PDF delivery, then, is no longer simply a Repurposing content. Some organizations offer contentTraditionally, statements have been sent through the mail, and years and the challenge becomes clear. At the same time, fewcustomer-centric issue it has evolved to become device- extracts of previously static information in structured dataits been a one-size-fits-all approach. No matter whether an Enterprise Content Management (ECM) systems used to store centric as well.formats such as XML or CSV. These structured data extracts 1213 8. are being directly imported into back-office applications in a straight-through processing manner, or manipulated by individual recipients within personal spreadsheets. Content repurposing offers a massive reduction inThe Power of Xenos downstream manual processing, resulting in real cost ePresentment savings for end consumers. Dynamic content consolidation. With dynamic content As a server-based approach, Xenos ePresentment consolidation, multiple related pieces of information offers a number of advantages: are merged or linked together to provide an expanded and/or supportive view of a single transaction or holistic It eliminates the gaps in existing customer position. An example would be a personal bank information architecture and process flows statement, where all relevant check images are appendedby streamlining information flows and to the end of the statement or hyperlinked within it and enabling the repurposing of legacy data then made available online. This translates into significant documents for new applications; saved time for end users who would otherwise have to It delivers a superior return on information search for supporting materials. In addition, customers canby making that information available where, get a consolidated view of all of their transactions acrosswhen and how it is needed at a lower cost; multiple lines of business, or over expanded periods of It enables the enterprise to control business time; this can enhance their service experience and makeinformation and flow for both structured it feel more personal to them.and unstructured data, making information Post processing composition. In post processingavailable where, when and how it is needed composition, previously produced and archivedwithin the enterprise to improve operational documents are manipulated in real time based onefficiency and business processes, reduce changing customer preferences and advanced analytics. In risk and costs, and increase productivity; an online world, customer profiles are constantly updated and what was true at the time of document production It eliminates redundancy in archive and may no longer hold true at the time of presentation. legacy applications and significantly Since documents are re-composed, assembled and reduces storage costs associated with presented online in real time, each reflects the latestdocument and image archives. How to Spot a Bad Strategy possible customer information and can take advantage of up-to-the-minute analytical trending reports extracted from corporate data warehouses. Online documents also reflect the most current marketing messages and offers self-service model for customer interaction. Online statements that are personally relevant to the consumer to supportcan be more than just a print document presented online,By Mark Graham Brown plenty of demand for their services, so this was a realistic goal. cross-selling and up-selling.though, and companies are realizing the benefits of presentingMark Graham Brown Consulting The company ended up with three key strategies for achievingrelevant and accurate information in a format thats adaptableWeve Document decomposition. Some organizations aretheir growth goal: one thats able to keep up with their branding initiatives whileall been in those planning taking advantage of print stream or PDF documentmeeting their clients personalized needs. Those companies aremeetings where we begin1. Increase share of business. Get more work from existing decomposition to present customers with a trulybeginning to understand that statements dont need to be theby reviewing our companyscustomers. interactive experience. Documents produced in printcost sink theyve previously been, but rather that they represent strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Typically stream or PDF formats offer a static presentation of2. Acquisitions. Investigate and purchase smaller competitorsan opportunity to interact with customers in a variety of ways.Perform Magazine // Information in Actionthere is a much longer list of strengths than there are or other companies who are in different markets/ information to the end customer. Advanced integratedXenos helps bridge the gap between companies documents weaknesses, but companies seem to be getting more realistic geographies. document solutions (IDS) break down static documentsand their customers, recognizing the true potential of online these days and are willing to acknowledge that they are not into individual XML files. A style sheet is created and 3. International. Focus on marketing to and acquiring newstatements. With a powerful solution like Xenos ePresentmentgood at everything. Once the goals or objectives have been applied to the extracted XML content, resulting in a veryinternational accounts in Asia and South America.behind the initiative and the right champions within theestablished for the next year or two, the real hard work begins interactive customer web experience.in coming up with strategies for success. There are oftenComing up with strategies is hard enough. Even more difficultVol 7. Issue 2 . 2010company driving it through online presentment can bringConclusionany companys statements into the present and through tomultiple strategies for a single goal. For example, a client had is coming up with realistic and accurate ways of evaluatingDriven by demand and a desire to continually improve theirthe future, helping to maintain and build their customer-client a goal of going from $400 million to $600 million in sales inwhether or not the strategies are the right ones. In this article,customer experience, organizations are moving to an onlinerelations at the same time. the next three years. Industry data indicated that there was we will explore some of the practices that tend to work well 1415 9. when evaluating strategies, as well as the most commonwebsite. They measured the effectiveness of the communicationmistakes organizations make when assessing their strategies.strategy by counting metrics like butts in chairs at briefingWell start out by examining some of the errors and follow up meetings, the number of newsletters distributed and web sitewith a review of the best practices Ive seen.hits. When they measured the effectiveness of communicationThe chances of any strategy being successful doMistake #1: Failure to Get External Opinions on the following year, it actually got worse.include factors like luck and timing, but experience isStrategyI tried using Google ad words as a marketing strategy for myDeciding on strategy is often more an exercise in politics than consulting and training business; I paid Google $400 to $600probably the most important variable.logic and reason. The executive team may brainstorm a list of every month to make sure Mark Graham Brown showed uppossible strategies for achieving the goals, but its funny how on the first page if someone did a search on performancethe ones that make the shirt list are almost always the onesmetrics or Balanced Scorecard. I got close to 1,000 hits permonth, which people told me was excellent. I did this for sixfor growth, market share and profit are handed down from #2 Best Practice for Spotting Bad Strategies: Lack ofsuggested by the CEO. Once in a while the CEO does not trymonths before realizing that not one of those website hits on high by the executives, board, or parent organization. We Knowledge/Experience/Successto control the decision and its a more democratic process,translated into dollars in business, or even a good hard lead. usually dont have much say in these, regardless of how stupidbut in these cases it is usually the person who can argue and Its funny how when companies get big they start to think theyThe big mistake all of these organizations (including my own)they might be. For example, I remember talking with a well-present his/her case the best who gets to select the strategies.are good at business, and that any business that comes alongare making is to judge the success of a strategy by measuringknown Fortune 100 technology firm right after the internetRegardless of how the decision making is done, though, it they can make successful. This directly contradicts Jim Collinsmilestones, activities, or behaviors associated with the chosenbubble burst in the mid 1990s and they still had a goal of 50is always a wise idea to get the council of some outsiders. findings that great companies stick to the knitting. In otherstrategy. You can complete all the activities on time and in the percent sales growth over the previous year! The best andPerhaps your board can provide advice on picking the rightwords, stick to what you are good at. The further you stray fromright number and still not achieve the goal. easiest way of spotting a bad strategy is logic and reason.strategy, but sometimes they are even too close to theyour roots, or what you currently do, the greater your chancessituation and there is always the political factor operating with Mistake #3: Measuring Strategy with Only Outcome Its hard for outsiders to understand how some big smart for failure. Weve seen this time after time. Anheuser Busch isboard members and executives as well. Most organizationsMetricsorganizations can make such stupid decisions sometimes great at making and selling beer, so they come up with a growthhave a handful of consultants or advisors who know their when coming up with strategies. Apparently some of these strategy called Eagle Snacks (pretzels and chips). The strategycompany well and who they can call on for honest advice This is probably even more common than tracking activities strategies are decided on without much in the way of a logical capitalizes on their core competences of manufacturing foodabout whether or not they have picked the right strategies. I as a way to tell if youve picked the right strategy. For many analysis. Some organizations rely on the nice diagrams withproducts, distribution, and marketing to consumers. It wouldwould take the time and spend the money to get at least two organizations, the only way to tell if a strategy worked is to circles and arrows called strategy maps to think through their seem to be a pretty easy transition, but it wasnt. Eagle Snacksor three outside opinions on the strategies you have selected look at lagging outcome metrics like revenue, profits, or market strategies. These diagrams are created in flipcharts with a team eventually failed and the remnants were sold to Frito Lay. Onebefore settling on them. This will be money well spent if the share. Its true that often these things are the ultimate goal orof experts and they look very scientific, but most are nothing of the simplest ways of spotting a bad strategy is to compareoutsiders can point out some risks or flaws in your choices. Thereason for the strategy. However, by the time you find out ifmore than a series of broad assumptions drawn on charts with the strategy with the organizations track record for success.danger with this approach is doing it when you have already the strategy worked, it is too late if this is all you measure. This arrows used to indicate causal relationships. For example, the This is what scares most people about a government-runmade up your mind and dont want to hear anything that is mistake is much more prevalent in business than in the non-sequence goes something like this: If our end goal is growth healthcare system. The government is not very good at runningcontrary to the strategies you have already picked. Therefore, it profit or government sector. They tend to be happy with activity in profits, then we need more loyal customers who give usanything, except perhaps the military. The Medicare system isis important to get this external input when the strategies are or program metrics. The people who run the Say No to Drugs more business. In order to improve loyalty, we need greateralready crippled by paperwork and bureaucracy and a strategystill in the idea phase, and probably before some big off-siteprogram are happy to track metrics like eyeballs that view their customer satisfaction. To achieve greater customer satisfaction, of having the government run the entire healthcare businessplanning meeting. This can provide you with some of the dataTV commercials or billboards, school programs conducted andwe need high levels of engagement from our employees. To seems doomed to failure.you present when discussing alternative strategies. buttons distributed. They dont want to be accountable for the achieve that we need to do a training workshop to teach everyfact that drug use has steadily risen as has spending for the SayStrategies should be selected based on the likelihood that the employee how they can contribute to improved customerMistake #2: Measuring Strategies with ActivityNo to Drugs campaign. Business people want to see outcomes organization can make them work. The chances of any strategy satisfaction and loyalty, and thus profits. Whew!Metrics that are usually measured in real dollars. Ive run across many being successful do include factors like luck and timing, but Sounds good right? So the flaw here is that no one is asking experience is probably the most important variable. This isA pension organization I worked with had a strategy oflarge corporations that measure the success of their strategies for evidence or even a logic test to evaluate each of thewhere outsiders are sometimes valuable because they can askbalancing their investment portfolio to manage risk better. One by only looking at outcomes that are water under the bridge. assumptions or theories in this strategy map. How, for example,the hard questions like: What makes you think you can pull thisof their metrics was the number of meetings with investment In other words, by the time we realize that the new office in can a training workshop lead to higher levels of engagementoff when you have never done anything like this before? Its hardPerform Magazine // Information in Actionadvisors. Another was the number of research papers written Singapore was a bad strategy we have already lost millions of from employees? If people are disengaged because they areto ask questions like this when you are inside the organization on different investment options. A second client had a strategy dollars. The success of any strategy is ultimately judged by the overworked and mostly have idiots for bosses, no trainingyou might be viewed as not being a team player.of growing sales through innovative new product designs; this outcomes it produces. However, waiting for those outcomes workshop is going to change that. If customer satisfactionwas a fashion-oriented business, so it sounded like a great and only measuring success with outcome data often makes it #3 Best Practice for Spotting Bad Strategies: Better does improve, how do you know that will lead to more loyalty?strategy. However, they measured the strategy by counting impossible to spot a bad strategy until it is too late. Strategic Metrics If loyalty does improve from some of your worst customers,activities like time spent with customers, trade shows attended, Vol 7. Issue 2 . 2010#1 Best Practice for Spotting Bad Strategies: Logic! this could result in a decline in profits. The bottom line is that One of the best and most scientific ways of spotting badand milestones completed on design projects. A third client someone needs to evaluate your strategies with a critical eyestrategies is to come up with a suite of metrics or an indexhad a strategy for improving communication with employees Its amazing to me how little thought and logic go into many and Mr. Spock logic to test all of the assumptions that have metric that drills down to lower-level indicators of success.that focused on a newsletter, briefing meetings, and employee strategies Ive seen in big organizations. Often the overall goals been made and ask for data/evidence to support them. Heres a great example: A consumer-products company has 16 17 10. The most important dimension of any approach tospotting bad strategies is speed. Organizations need toquickly detect a bad strategy in the first month or two,change course, and come up with a new one. Waiting until the end of the year to see if any strategy is a successdooms you.a growth strategy that depends on establishing a tighter Outputs;partnership with a few key successful retail customers who Outcomes.stock and sell their product. The success of this customerrelationship management strategy is measured with a The input and process metrics are the leading indicators thatCustomer Engagement Index. The index includes a numberhelp tell you the strategy is a good one, but the ultimate successof hard and soft measures of the strength of the relationship,of a strategy is determined by the outputs and outcomes, whichincluding factors such as shelf space, use of the consumer- are lagging indicators.products company as consultants, turnover of key customerSummary and Conclusionscontact personnel on both sides, customer profit margin,customer satisfaction, brand strength, and relationship withBusiness textbooks are filled with all sorts of strategies that werecompetitors. The consumer-products company is able to colossal failures: Daimler-Chrysler, Time Warner/AOL mergers, The Road to World-Classmeasure customer engagement on a monthly basis to evaluateNew Coke, diet pills that give you uncontrollable diarrhea, spray-the success of the relationship building strategy.on hair and lots of companies branching out into new productsand markets and cultures where they dont know what theyAnother client had a growth strategy linked to innovative are doing (EuroDisney!). The most important dimension of any Commissioningnew products. New products sometimes took three to five approach to spotting bad strategies is speed. Organizationsyears from concept to market, so the company developed an need to quickly detect a bad strategy in the first month or two,Innovation Index that included the following sub-metrics: change course, and come up with a new one. Waiting until the Employee perceptions and beliefs regarding risk taking end of the year to see if any strategy is a success dooms you tofailure. Ask for outside opinions on your chosen strategies, test and innovation;their logic, pick strategies that link to your past successes, and Early Adoption of PBC Software has put NHS South of Tyne and Wear Streets Ideas/suggestions passing through first, second, and third screens;measure the progress of each strategy with a suite of leading andlagging indicators. Ahead of Other PCTs in its Journey Towards Commissioning Excellence NHS Milestones met on innovation projects; Mark Graham Brown has 30 years of experience helping business and South of Tyne and Wear isnt modest in its and South Tyneside Primary Care Trusts, as well as Sunderland Patents; government organizations measure and manage performance. Hisambitions. Despite challenging demographicsTeaching Primary Care Trust.current clients include the U.S. Navy, Medtronic, Eagle Systems, Inter-and intensive demands on its health services, the regional Industry firsts; American Development Bank, and Nestle Purina. Mark is the author NHS body excels in the provision of information to practice-The statistics for Sunderland alone are striking. The 2004 IndexPerform Magazine // Information in Actionof a number of books on performance measurement, including his based commissioners and aspires to achieve World-Classof Multiple Deprivation ranked Sunderland as the 22nd most Awards, rankings, recognition;deprived district (of 354) in the UK. Sunderland has also beenmost recent: Performance Management Pocket Guide (2010). HeCommissioning status within the next two years. Sales and margins from new products. is currently collaborating on a new book with Steve Player calledfound to be part of the worst 10 areas in England for binge It is often said that, if you want something done quickly and drinking, and one in three adults and one in five children agedThe key to coming up with a good strategic index metric is to Banishing Business Bullshit How to Save Millions and be a Hero well, ask a busy person. The same seems to be true in theat Work that will be published in 2011. Mark has his own consulting10 to 11 are clinically obese. Meanwhile, an already dominantmake sure it includes the following types of sub-metrics:NHS. If you want to see real step change, go and talk to an elderly population is set to double by 2025, with increasingVol 7. Issue 2 . 2010practice in Manhattan Beach, California. overstretched PCT whose resources are under pressure. numbers having long-term conditions including serious Inputs;Contact the author at mgb1@mindspring.com or via his website atNHS South of Tyne and Wear provides a single management disabilities. (Almost one in four adults suffer from a long-term Processes; markgrahambrown.com. infrastructure serving some 600,000 people across Gateshead condition, compared to one in 10 in England as a whole). 1819 11. system for delivering budgets, rather than multiple emailed Traffic-Light Alertsspreadsheets, notes Watson.The sophisticated reporting capabilities provided by BIRTThis is its real value getting practices to look at This means that the 117 GP practices in its region now receiveScorecard are so accessible that they are used across thefully-costed budgets at healthcare resource group level for all their budgets and review how they are referring patients patients. This allows them to get a clearer picture of whereboard from executive directors (for performance information)to the staff on the front line (for management and clinical to secondary care, so that improvements can be made. resources are being expended, and where areas of pressureare developing, so that these can be addressed efficiently andinformation, to support decision-making). BIRT Scorecardprovides a Briefing Book feature, for example, which allows Scott Watson, Acting Head of Information Management and Business Intelligence effectively.organizations to create and deploy customized views ofSavings performance to accommodate specific users needs.SincedeployingPreviously, we had a number of disparate systems tacklingSo it is impressive, faced with these not insubstantialdeploy BIRT Scorecard to an additional 64 practices in a fractionthe PBC systemvariousaspectschallenges, that NHS South of Tyne and Wear is developingof the time it would have taken other products.two years ago, NHSofPerformancean enviable reputation for its approach to information Previously, NHS South of Tyne and Wear had a range of disparateSouth of Tyne and Management,delivery for PBCs. systems in place that made it difficult to collate or assess PBC Wear estimates that but there was noFrom Performance Management to PBC information across the integrated landscape. With the newit has saved over continuity, and there system, this situation was transformed in a matter of a few weeks. 1 million by being were many gaps,NHS South of Tyne and Wear was in the process of procuring a We are still one of the few PCTs to have a single, centralizedable to pinpointWatson says. It wassystem for Performance Management when the Departmentexcessive outpatientalso very resource-of Health (DoH) introduced its targets for PBC. It chose theappointments andintensive trying toBIRT Performance Scorecard suite of Business Intelligencefrequent flyerupdate them all.tools from Actuate, which leads the way in PerformanceManagement. Its solutions capture and analyze management About NHS South of Tynepatients. The ability Now,everythinginformation from a range of sources, presenting this to and Wearto identify and is centralized,quantify the impact everyone has it, andstakeholders in a very accessible, visual way via the web.NHS South of Tyne and Wear covers Gateshead these patients have its very accessible.When the DoH made its move to the Annual Healthcheck in Primary Care Trust (PCT), South Tyneside Primaryon local health The software isplace of star ratings, NHS South of Tyne and Wear decided Care Trust (PCT) and Sunderland Teachingproviders has very intuitive too,that Actuate was ideal for the task, thanks to the depth andPrimary Care Trust (TPCT) and is the name given enabled the PCT toso you dont needclarity of its information reporting. Actuate agreed to lendto the integrated management arrangements utilize alternative IT skills to introducethe Trust management some development time, in order to which exist across the three PCTs. This means that, community services,ultimately ensuring resources are usednew elements. If new legislation is introduced concerninghone the software so that it would measure specific criteriawhilst each PCT remains a statutory organizationappropriately, but most importantly, providing better moreadditional performance areas that need to be measured, youacross the full range of commission categories and relatedin its own right, the day-to-day management ofappropriate care to patients, Watson says. can build new frameworks very quickly, without having to waitbudgets.the PCTs has been brought together under aHaving gained an early advantage and made good headwayfor an external software expert to come in, Watson explains.Speed to Market single management team.with initial PBC target monitoring, NHS South of Tyne and WearStaff Savings, Better DecisionsThe software, first procured in January 2006, went live thatNHS South of Tyne and Wear covers the is now working at encompassing broader community metricsApril a full eight months before the DoHs strict deadlinesame area as Gateshead, South Tyneside andinto the system. It wants to be able to measure activities andThe software has provided such a boost to productivity that itsfor universal PBC coverage. The speed of the roll-out owed aSunderland Local Authorities and is responsible resource consumption among district nurses and health allowed NHS South of Tyne and Wear to free up resources togreat deal to the applications ease of use, and its web-basedfor spearheading improvements to the health visitors, as well as capturing more primary-care data fromother more strategic tasks. But above all, the system lets us pushconfiguration. Scott Watson, Acting Head of Information of local people. To do this they must understandGP systems (such as attendance and prevalence). Our aimout information and robustly monitor and manage resources,Management and Business Intelligence at the Trust explains: the health needs of their local communities and is to link primary and secondary health care information, toWatson says. This is its real value getting practices to lookat their budgets and review how they are referring patients toPerform Magazine // Information in ActionPrior to the integration of our management structure, theuse their resources to fund, improve and developprovide an holistic view of the health of our population, andsystem was deployed in Sunderland only. Our rollout ineasily accessible healthcare services in line withthe effectiveness of our services, Watson explains. Knowledge, secondary care, so that improvements can be made.Sunderland took place almost overnight, with all 54 GPthose needs. This means working closely withafter all, is power.The journey towards World-Class Commissioning statusPractices being able to access BIRT Scorecard within a matter local hospitals, GP practices, pharmacies, dentalWatsons ambitions are fueled by the ease of use of the BIRTcontinues, as NHS South of Tyne and Wear works to introduceof days. Following integration, the strategic decision waspractitioners and optometrists, as well as theirScorecard suite, which he describes as visually very striking. It additional data into BIRT Scorecard. Thanks to the Actuatemade to use BIRT Scorecard as the vehicle for the deliverysocial care partners, to ensure the best possibleVol 7. Issue 2 . 2010displays information very flexibly using a hierarchical structure system, we now have a very good feel of where we are with this.of Practice Based Budgets and associated management range of services are availableand traffic lights, so you can see how everything interconnects Were now using BIRT Scorecard for all aspects of Performanceinformation across the NHS South of Tyne and Wear patch.and identify immediately where issues are arising, he says. You Management and health commission frameworks, so we haveDue to the systems easy-to-use architecture, we were able to can then drill down into more detail to see whats going on. a clear roadmap on which to chart our progress, Watson says. 2021 12. EMERGENCY Rich Information ApplicationsBy 2030 the United States over-65 population isRESPONSE expected to nearly triple from its 1980 rate,Enable Healthcare Providersa result of the influential baby boomergeneration reaching their retirement years. And as is natural with any agingto Maintain Healthy Datapopulation, those baby boomers will face escalating health issues, in turn puttingmore and more pressure on the healthcare system and continuing to add stress toit for years to come. Thats not the only concern that the healthcare industry faces, By John Katsoulis & Seema Haji either; 16 percent of Americans dont have medical insurance, while another 17 Actuate Corporationpercent of the population has opted out of their health insurance for a multitudeof reasons, including an inability to afford the payroll deductions.Meanwhile, as demand increases, costs are escalating, largely because growth inhealthcare hasnt been organic. While more customers enter the healthcare system,there are fewer companies out there to offer them the services that they need.Instead, existing companies grow to try to accommodate the increased demand.Skyrocketing costs are making it look like the industry is getting bigger, though,because costs and revenues for those left keep going up. The total number ofcommercial healthcare plans is decreasing, while high-deductible health plans are decreasing profits. As a result a greater emphasis, by necessity, has been put on costs, savings and efficiencies. Growth, in turn, has changed the quality of the services that are being offered. Mechanisms are needed to spur organic growth in healthcare, as well as to entice the working uninsured and to build more consumer-driven products. As changes continue to reshape the healthcare industry, healthcare providers are finding that they must view themselves differently than in the past and improve their methodology to gather the right data in an efficient way. Hospitals need information that allows them to measure their performance in a wide range of key areas, including regulatory requirements, patient care, healthcare services, outcomes operations, and finance. Rich Information Applications have a massive impact on a healthcare organizations ability to deliver services, create differentiation and enhance market appeal. Too Much Data, Too Little Time Hospitals are businesses, and like all businessesPerform Magazine // Information in Action they need to make money in other words, revenue must exceed expenses. When they dont, a hospital often cant afford to continue on, which is why the United States is losing an average of 30 hospitals a year. Others risk closing too because Vol 7. Issue 2 . 2010 of Medicaid under funding. Meanwhile, one- third of the revenue that used to be captured by 22 23 13. hospitals now goes to non-hospital providers, physicians and Delivering regular and on-demand content to all usersambulatory surgery companies. Occupancy rates are goingfrom a single unified platform so they can make the rightup but the number of beds is on the decline. Fees are goingdecisions at the right time;down but costs are going up. Lowering the total cost of ownership with Open SourceHealthcare data is also getting more difficult to manage technology, zero-training environments, lowest setupwith more regulations, complex reimbursement processes costs and fastest time to market;and fewer staff. Although patient care continues to be top Providing physicians, nurses and other staff with theof mind, utilization management, physician satisfaction and richest, most personalized user experience possible.employee satisfaction also need to be measured accurately.An explosion of data has accompanied these factors on a BIRT Performance Managementdaily, weekly, and monthly basis, including:BIRT displays powerful, visually engaging dashboards and Detailed financial data spitting out from billing and cost-scorecards to track healthcare Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) tracking systems;such as operational efficiencies, billing and claims information Average census, admissions, discharges, and length-of- and physician performance to convey this information to stay information;hospital administrators in an easily consumable format. BIRTdashboards display data about current and past performance Turnover rates, vacancies, accident rates, and employeeand show what needs to be improved either immediately or satisfaction tracked by Human Resources;in the future. Users can drill through into BIRT reports for root- And accreditation, certification, outside performancecause and what-if analysis. benchmarks, and patient satisfaction levels, monitored by managers; Users can view or create dashboards from templates, readcommentary down to the measure level and view trendingThe result is data overload.information over time and location. Enabling interactiveBIRT-Based Rich Information Applications andcontent allows stakeholders to evaluate the results of servicesBusiness Intelligence Tools provided and the overall effectiveness of processes. With PSEG Leverages Actuate to Reducethe right view of KPIs, areas for concern can be identifiedAn effective healthcare information system must access andimmediately and a hospitals performance and outcomes canintegrate real-time data such as efficiencies and utilization,be managed effectively.patient and physician information, and employee satisfaction.Costs and Increase ProductivityThis information exists in multiple systems. As new mandatesEnd users can access regular and on-demand content in aare implemented, healthcare providers must expand their variety of presentation styles, including brochure-qualityuse for larger user populations. Dependability and high documents, performance scorecards, Briefing Books, Excelperformance become crucial business requirements at thisfiles, dashboards and simple data-driven web pages. Withstage as well.limitless data presentation formats and integration possibilitiesThe PSEG Challengefor the BPR. This report generation process was manual andThetook several days after the month-end close to produce.Actuate Healthcare solutions can help healthcare agencies from a single platform, Actuates Rich Information Application-clarity of a one-page statement on monthlywade through the data overload. They are built on BIRTready platform leads to 100 percent user adoption across the actuals, plan and forecast with drilldown Teams throughout PSEG were spending a substantial amount(Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools) and BIRTenterprise.capability offers compelling value to any of time producing reports and compiling analysis, states DavidPerformance Scorecard to deliver a cost-effective powerfulbusiness. The larger the organization, the more critical the Shor, Senior Business Process Design Specialist in the PSEGConclusionsolution that can be used by hospitals, medical facilities andneed. Services Corporation. Not only was this process inefficient,healthcare professionals. The healthcare industry in the United States faces greatbut the data was often outdated by the time it reached theThe Commercial Operations Group at Public Service Enterprisechallenges now and in the years to come. A rigorous management reporting team.Perform Magazine // Information in ActionFor healthcare, BIRT tools offer options for creating interactive Group (PSEG), a $12 billion energy and energy services companyPerformance Management program can keep track ofdashboards, billing and claims scorecards, physiciansheadquartered in New Jersey, deployed the SAP Business The Actuate Solutionperformance trends; without one, results are difficult todashboards, strategy maps and interactive reports, enabling Information Warehouse (SAP BW) to provide a data warehouseascertain. Increasing regulatory guidelines detailing new PSEG selected Actuate to deliver a critical financial managementthe management and improvement of performance. Actuatethroughout its organization. PSEG found it difficult to use thecritical areas of performance, the demand for performance application for its business units and management team. TheHealthcare solutions empower hospitals and medical staff by:reporting functionality within SAP BW to create its key financialimprovements in clinical outcomes, and increased reportingcompany selected Actuate over Business Objects and Cognosperformance statement, called the Business Performance Report Vol 7. Issue 2 . 2010 Streamlining financial, operational and customer demands have all contributed to this need for a practical and based on the following reasons:(BPR). The BPR is used by all of PSEG Services Corporations interaction processes with up-to-the-momentuseful system. The key areas of patient care, healthcare services,business units and the management reporting team. Therefore, The ability to include revenue, expense and residual data, information to slash costs and improve patient operations, outcomes, and finance can be measured withPSEG created multiple Excel reports to display the data needed from multiple information sources, on a single page; satisfaction;Actuate applications built using Actuate BIRT. 24 25 14. PSEG relies on Actuate for one of the most critical reports in our organization the Business PerformanceAbout PSEG Industry: Energy & Utilities Challenge: Report. Actuate pulls data from multiple informationPublic Service Enterprise Group (PSEG) is a publicly- Compiling monthly Excel and SAP BW analysis wastraded (NYSE:PEG), growing energy and energytime-consuming and inefficient; sources and produces a single version of the truth.services company headquartered in New Jersey. Financial information was outdated by the timeThe company delivers gas and electric service safely David Shor, Senior Business Process Design Specialist, PSEG Services Corporation and reliably to areas of New Jersey in which about 70 received;percent of the population reside. PSEG has assets over Wished to produce an at-a-glance snapshot for The ability to store annotations at a cell level for each Actuate e.Reports is integrated with SAP BW and aggregates $28.6 billion and total revenues of $12.2 billion, with business and each unit, with drilldown capability. business unit that runs the report, and aggregate those data from multiple information cubes into a single presentation- over 10,000 employees. into a single report for management reporting analysis; quality report with full annotation capabilities. Over the past Solution:The PSEG Services Corporation was formed in 1999 to couple of years, the Actuate Business Performance Reporte.Reports, e.Spreadsheet and Information Objects for Flexible output, including Excel.provide quality, value-added services to internal clients (BPR) has become one of the most critical reports in the PSEG financial management reportingwithin the PSEG family of companies. This division Services Corporation. The BPR is a profit-and-loss statementPSEG selected Actuate because it met all of our functional employs approximately 927 associates, who in turnBenefits: that compares actual, plan, and forecast data and is used by allrequirements and could integrate with the SAP BWprovide transactional and professional products and business units, as well as the management reporting team. This Saved the equivalent of 20 workdays per month of ainfrastructure. We had multiple requirements for our reportingservices to 21 business units. hospitals, GP practices, report presents a clear, one-page picture of PSEGs financialfull-time employee through process automation;solution, including web based, user friendly and the ability to pharmacies, dental practitioners and optometrists, performance, including summaries and forecasts for eachsupport multiple hierarchies and queries from a single report.as well as their social care partners to ensure the best Tailored reports to specific user needs, empowering business unit.In addition, Actuate was also the only solution that would allowpossible range of services are availableusers. Improved development efficiency, freeingannotations within a report at a cell level a key requirement,PSEG is also leveraging Actuate e.Spreadsheet and Informationup IT resources.says Shor. Objects to enhance the user experience and to speeddevelopment. e.Spreadsheet enables PSEG to source data from Tailor reports to user needsboth SAP BW and SAP R/3 and combine the data into a singlereport. Actuate e.Spreadsheet gives PSEG the ability to createActuate offers a flexible, powerful development environmentdynamic, reoccurring formulas based on different nodes of for precise control. The PSEG development team has not beenmultiple hierarchies. Links and formulas are based on the server, limited in terms of the kinds of enterprise reports that can benot in the spreadsheet, so deleting rows and columns will not delivered, ensuring that specific end-user needs are met.affect data or formulas.Improve development efficiencyBy partnering with Actuate Professional Services, PSEGWith Actuates e.Spreadsheet, PSEG gets the power andcompleted the e.Reports implementation in two months andcustomization capabilities of Actuate combined with thethe e.Spreadsheet implementation in less than six months.interactive and familiar interface of Excel. Power users are ableBenefits of Actuate to develop their own e.Spreadsheet reports, offloading thedevelopment from IT staffs.Perform Magazine // Information in ActionGenerate cost savingsPrior to Actuate, PSEG relied on a manual, time-consuming The PSEG Futureprocess to create the BPR. Actuate has fully automated thisPSEG will continue to leverage Actuate for financial management,process, pulling data from both SAP R/W and SAP BW into toas it has helped in reducing operating expenses while increasinga single report. As a result, PSEG has saved 20 days per monthuser satisfaction. Vol 7. Issue 2 . 2010of work because of the Actuate application, and is expectedto save more time as additional reports are developed inGoing forward, PSEG plans to increase the use of Actuate[ Figure 6.1: PSEGs Actuate reports aggregate annotations, providing variance and revised forecast explanations as well as the ability e.Spreadsheet.throughout our organization, says Shor.to drilldown and expand to lower levels of details. ] 26 27 15. Top-NotchPerformanceHow Promaco Consulting Uses Years of Experienceto Measure and Improve their Clients PerformanceCapabilitiesHow do you get where you want to go in a fast andCorporate Governance, Process and Project Management, andfocused way? Realize your business goals efficientlyIT Integration Promaco has made it their business to help theirand effectively?clients measure and improve their performance and to realizetheir business plans and goals. With offices in Antwerp, BelgiumIts all about performance, the partners at Promaco Consultingand Utrecht, The Netherlands, the team of consultants haswill tell you. Performing well on all levels can make yourworked all over the world with primarily medium- to large-sizedcompany shine. Knowing where your performance strengths companies from a range of industries, including healthcare,and weaknesses may be and measuring them along the waywaste management, electronics, tobacco, financial and textile.to see where you arent up to par can give you a better ideaof where you might need to focus your efforts, so that you canIn the last seven years, Promaco has gone even further to trywork on improving that performance to make your businessto meet its clients needs, by developing a software application.run better. Called Connect, its a user-friendly data and metadata ETLsoftware and allows for the seamless integration of Actuates BIRTAs a consulting company with 20 years experience and aPerformance Scorecard Performance Management softwarespecialty in Business Performance Management as well as with any type and number of data and metadata sources.Perform Magazine // Information in Action Vol 7. Issue 2 . 2010[ Figure 7.1: Using Connect you can seamlessly integrate your BIRT Performance Scorecard with any underlying metadata and data source. Due toConnects capability to define connection procedures using variables for measure, location, comparative and period, one and the same procedurecan process data for a wide spread of combinations. ] 28 29 16. [ Figure 7.2: In Connect, variables can be used in simple click-and-select procedures or in full blown SQL or MDX statements. On execution anyvariable will be replaced with the name of the object data youre looking for. As a result, the number of connection procedures can be reduceddramatically, saving time in both the initial setup and the maintenance. ]How Does BIRT Fit In?Promaco has had a long and fruitful history with Actuate and its Expanded Opportunityteam. They use the Actuate suite of performance and reporting Quick Facts abouttools, as well as their own Connect ETL and PerformanceManagement expertise, for fast and reliable deployments of aPromacos Connectuser-friendly management information solution that providesa clear connection between a companys strategy, tactics andA system with 100 measures, 20 locations,operations. three comparatives and 12 monthlyperiods might yield a total of 72,000 How Prudential Expanded its File ConversionThe consulting firm first started using BIRT PerformanceScorecard formerly referred to as Views in 1995 and hascombinations. Using Promacos Connect,Capabilities Using Technology from Xenos Eand depending on the structure of yoursince seen their company evolve along with the softwaresource data, this could be reduced to as stablished in 1848, Prudential plc is an international capabilities to bring even more workflow improvements to itssolution. Theyve used the application in close to 40 differentlittle as 100 procedure signatures.financial services group with significant operations document generation, proofing and COMfiche functions.customer settings, and in the past two years have started usingBIRT reporting capabilities as well. in Asia, the United States and the United Kingdom.ChallengesConnect allows you to use metadata fromIt provides insurance and financial services throughWith help from Actuates performance and reporting tools,your existing transactional systems, or to its subsidiaries and affiliates throughout the world. In the UK, Prior to adopting Xenos technology, proofing Xerox-formattedPromaco also now offers a solution for Independent Softwareprepare measure and location structures. Prudential UK & Europe is a leading life and pensions provider documents was a time-consuming process for PrudentialVendors (ISV) that wish to deploy an integrated managementAfter connecting to these sources, the with approximately seven million customers.IT staff. The proofing process took a lot of time due to thePerform Magazine // Information in Actioninformation solution on top of their application. The solutionsystem will process the available metadata PGDS is a distinct company within the Prudential plc group ofslow turnaround on test prints, says Jane Spittal, IT Technicalcan be set up for any ISV vendor in a matter of days and requiresand automatically create measure and companies. It is responsible for the delivery of IT infrastructure Specialist with PGDS. In order to check application changes,as little as one day to be deployed at each new customer site.location structures for your Scorecard onservices for the group.programmers often had to wait two or three hours for their testIts proven to be a successful offering, and Promaco now has 80the fly.outputs to be printed and sent back to them. If further changespercent of the Housing Authorities market in The Netherlands,A Xenos customer since 2001, Prudential has relied on Xenoswere required, it could take several days to test even minorwhere they provide a boxed solution to deploy a management to streamline a number of internal processes. Prudential initially Vol 7. Issue 2 . 2010changes to formatted output.information system on top of their transactional systems, usingimplemented Xenos d2e software, the technology behindActuate and Promacos technology and based on a pre-builtthe transformation-services-for-documents component of Xenos d2e technology enables the transformation andperformance framework for the industry.Xenos Enterprise Server. More recently it expanded on Xenos repurposing of high-volume print stream documents into 30 31 17. In considering the new requirements, we had tobe satisfied that Xenos could handle outputs from ourIBM mainframe as well as the existing Unisys outputs.And we needed to ensure that the system could cope By adding processing power to the Xenostechnology, it easily handled the file sizes and volumes,and we have had no problems in terms of loading andsearching. Now all files are available and easy to locate with the extra volumes without adversely affectingand users are benefiting from the search capabilities inturnaround on existing PDFs.PDF. Jane Spittal, IT Technical Specialist, PGDS Prudential John Alcock, Senior IT Technical Specialist, PGDS Prudentialelectronic formats. In 2001, Prudential purchased the As the regulatory climate changed, Prudential decided in transport to and from the site was too great. We wanted to easily handled the file sizes and volumes, and we have had notechnology specifically to streamline the document-proofing March 2009 to reconsider the management of its COMficheeliminate the physical transport of data and adopt an onlineproblems in terms of loading and searching. Now all files areprocess. With this transformation services software, Prudentialcreation and storage. Historically we had been sending printalternative. In doing so we would be able to achieve a next-day available and easy to locate; and users are benefiting from thewas able to convert print streams to PDF. This enabled staffstreams from our mainframes offsite via tape to be converted toturnaround, Alcock adds. search capabilities in PDF.to check changes right away, reducing the testing cycle frommicrofiche and returned to us for storage, explains John Alcock, SolutionAbout the Technologyhours and in some cases days to a matter of minutes.Senior IT Technical Specialist, PGDS. According to our policy, wesent tapes out once a week. This ultimately meant a potentialAccording to Spittal, taking on the additional print streamsXenos d2e is the underlying technology within XenosFrom the outset, when volumes were in the region of 1,00010-day turnaround before we saw the output in microfiche would more than double the volumes of what was beingEnterprise Servers Transformation Services for Documents.documents per month, Prudential increased the use of Xenosform. Also, there were occasional misfilings and search functionshandled by the existing Xenos transformation technology.Xenos Enterprise Server (ES) transforms, indexes and repurposestechnology every year. A second license was purchased towere cumbersome at times. As she points out, while they initially considered a number ofinformation into other formats for print and presentation. Itenable the software to be used for distribution of outputs to vendors, Xenos had been chosen because of the fidelity of the integrates with existing applications through a variety of inputbusiness areas, and volumes reached 15,000 documents per In addition to lengthy processing delays and potential errors, print stream conversion. In considering the new requirements,and output services, allowing organizations to add value tomonth by the end of 2008. Prudential also decided that the risk of losing data during we had to be satisfied that Xenos could handle outputs from their document-centric business processes and applications our IBM mainframe as well as the existing Unisys outputs. And without changing their infrastructure. With its Java-based, multi- we needed to ensure that the system could cope with the extra threaded architecture, Xenos ES is designed to process millions volumes without adversely affecting turnaround on existingof high-volume print documents each with sub-second PDFs.performance. After considering a software upgrade, the decision was made Summary instead to add CPUs to increase processing power, as well as To date, the Xenos platform handles 30,000 documents a acquire a test license for the COMfiche data requirements. month on average, half of which are used for online viewing Prudential was aware that the conversion was a considerable for internal and external users. As users become more familiar effort, since it entailed a number of changes in mainframe with the technology, Spittal says that Prudential will continue functions. to build on its capabilities to improve processes in other areas. It was a big project that involved many people on both the Originally we started with document proofing. The next stage IT and business sides, says Alcock. We did look at differentwas distributing internal reports to business users in their versions of software to implement, but ultimately decided itoffices, then the COMfiche conversion. There is still more wePerform Magazine // Information in Action would be better to augment the processing power instead. We can do with the new system. We are all very happy with the already knew the capabilities of the Xenos solution, so we felt change. this would allow us to implement the transition with minimal disruption. We were worried, however, that the large file sizes up to 650 MB is some cases might tax the system. Prudential plc is a company incorporated with its principal place ofVol 7. Issue 2 . 2010 The worries were laid to rest fairly quickly in the process. The business in England. Prudential plc is not affiliated in any manner fiche conversion exercise was very successful, Alcock adds. with Prudential Financial, Inc, a company whose principal place of By adding processing power to the Xenos technology, it business is in the United States of America. 3233 18. By Virgil Dodson,BIRT Evangelist, Actuate Corporation;Karishma Haji,Product Marketing Manager, Actuate Corporation;and Sean Wilbur,Rational Unleash the Labs, IBM CorporationIntroductionSoftwaredevelopment management is the ability to track sourcecode as it goes through the various stages of developmentfrom requirements gathering, testing, to release. Software requirements, plans and technicalchanges in a project, combined with the eminent interdependent and repetitive nature ofthe software development process, can make management chaotic for project managersand increase software quality risks. Reporting is a business attribute of project administrationfor software development. Metrics, summaries, and contextual reports provide views andinsight into the status of a project and help bring projects to successful completion.IBM Rational ClearQuest, a comprehensive flexible change management system suitable formultiple process management, provides change tracking, process automation, reporting,traceability, and control of the software development lifecycle. Software development teamsuse Rational ClearQuest to successfully manage change in their development environmentsand throughout the software development cycle.Version 7.1 of Rational ClearQuest provides a new, flexible reporting mechanism based ona data-pull reporting model, adding significant flexibility over the traditional data-pushmodel, so that individual team members can gain real-time visibility into developmentactivities. Data is pulled from Rational ClearQuest via the supplied ClearQuest ODA JDBCdriver and presented in the standard reports shipped with ClearQuest 7.1 that are based onthe Open Source Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools (BIRT), a project of the EclipseFoundation.BIRT is an Open Source reporting system for web applications, especially those based onJava and J2EE. Actuate founded and co-leads the BIRT project, while IBM is also an activeparticipant, with representation on the Project Management Committee and a number ofdevelopers contributing code.The BIRT project brings Rich Information Application capabilities as well as interactivityto the web-based reporting of structured data. As a result, it is the Open Source BusinessIntelligence offering with the most momentum, with more than 6.5 million downloadsthrough 2008. BIRT consists of a comprehensive report development environment, reportingengine and powerful skill-specific tools for creating rich, interactive reports for client andA Clearer Viewweb applications in a variety of formats. Rational has implemented these technologies asthe basis of the new built-in reporting solution within Rational ClearQuest 7.1, along with aPerform Magazine // Information in Actionset of standard BIRT reports that present the most commonly needed data.BIRT provides the foundation for the new web-based reporting in Rational ClearQuest 7.1and will help meet the core, on-demand reporting requirements of ClearQuest users.This new architecture also provides the basis for more advanced reporting capabilitiesMaximizing the Value of the New BIRT Reporting in IBM Vol 7. Issue 2 . 2010that will allow users to maximize the value of the data captured in ClearQuest. Theseadvanced capabilities span a range of reporting needs, including customization and userRational ClearQuestpersonalization of reports, web-based report development by any ClearQuest user, andreport scheduling, archiving and distribution. 34 35 19. The New Reporting Paradigm and Feature-RichEclipse. The BIRT Designer guarantees stable source code as itBIRT Reporting in ClearQuest is based on an Open Source initiative and has been tested by a wide variety of users on different infrastructures and platforms.Rational ClearQuest Version 7.1 provides a new paradigm The report designer provides an intuitive, easy-to-use, drag-for reporting using a data-pull reporting model, adding and-drop environment for representing structured data withinsignificant flexibility over the traditional data-push model, a layout similar to a web page. Developers can use the designerand enabling real-time reporting. Prior versions used a data- quickly and effectively to create complex markups includingpush model to run reports, which precluded reporting on dashboards, drillable charts and charts that can change colorsmultiple data sources and multiple result sets. With the new based on values, where each cell pulls in information from thedata-pull paradigm and built-in BIRT reporting technology, internal implementation of ClearQuest.ClearQuest users have significantly more flexibility, withthe ability to create real-time reports that use multiple data The BIRT report designer provides advanced capabilities throughsources and multiple data sets, and the ability to store and reusable components such as libraries and templates andmanage reports by using an enterprise reporting server.programmatic control over the individual elements in a report through Java and JavaScript. Components can be frequentlyThe reporting solution built into Rational ClearQuest used data queries, visualization items, calculations or storedincludes the Open Source BIRT Designer, BIRT Engine and connections. These reusable report components can be usedBIRT Viewer from the Eclipse project. The BIRT Designer as is or enhanced to meet new requirements, enabling users toprovides ClearQuest customers with the ability to create quickly change reports as business requirements mature.report designs as a part of ClearQuest, without the need topurchase a separate report designer, while the BIRT Engine The BIRT Designer connects to ClearQuest through a JDBCand BIRT Viewer provide on-demand reporting capabilities.driver called the ClearQuest ODA, based on the Open Source Eclipse Open Data Access (ODA) project. The ClearQuest ODADesigning ClearQuest Reports with the BIRT driver was developed by Rational and is key to the real-time [ Figure 9.2: Designing reports with the BIRT Report Designer provided with Rational ClearQuest. ]Designer reporting capabilities. The ClearQuest ODA provides local andThe BIRT Designer is bundled as a plug-in for the ClearQuest web connections exposing the underlying ClearQuest queries built into ClearQuest are honored by the reporting capabilities On-demand report generation provided by ClearQuest Webclien