Peter James Thomas

An expanded and more mobile-friendly version of the Data & Analytics Dictionary

A revised and expanded version of the peterjamesthomas.com Data and Analytics Dictionary has been published.

The previous Dictionary was not the easiest to read on mobile devices. Because of this, the layout has been amended in this release and the mobile experience should now be greatly enhanced. Any feedback on usability would be welcome.

The new Dictionary includes 22 additional…

In my last post, we met Jane Doe, CEO. This article forms part of her further adventures [1]. The material may seem eerily familiar to anyone who – like me – has a pre-teen daughter.

  The figures show red in the ledger of dread Not a bright spot anywhere A storm of profit warnings And I’m tearing out my hair Our shares are tumbling like the rain I hear outside Can’t find out why, our…

A skilled practitioner, hard at work developing elements of a Structured Reporting Framework © Jennifer Thomas Photography – view full photo.     For anyone who is unaware, the title of the article echoes a 1953 Nature paper [1], which was instead “of considerable biological interest” [2]  

  Introduction

I have been very much focussing on the start of a data journey in a series of recent…

The author, working from home together with his Executive Assistant © Jennifer Thomas Photography – view full photo.

When I occasionally re-read articles I penned back in 2009 or 210, I’m often struck that – no matter how many things have undeniably changed over the intervening years in the data arena – there are some seemingly eternal verities. For example, it’s never just about the technology…

Data Strategy Creation – A Roadmap

Larger PDF version (opens in a new tab).

Data Strategy creation is one of the main pieces of work that I have been engaged in over the last decade [1]. In my last article, Measuring Maturity, I wrote about Data Maturity and how this relates to both Data Strategy and a Data Capability Review. Here I wanted to step back and look at the big picture.

The exhibit above is one that I use to chart my…

The author, engaged in measuring maturity – © Jennifer Thomas Photography – view full photo.

In the thirteen years that have passed since the beginning of 2007, I have helped ten organisations to develop commercially-focused Data Strategies [1]. I last wrote about the process of creating a Data Strategy back in 2014 and – with the many changes that the field has seen since then – am overdue…

Put our Knowledge and Writing Skills to Work for you

As well as consultancy, research and interim work, peterjamesthomas.com Ltd. helps organisations in a number of other ways. The recently launched Data Strategy Review Service is just one example.

Another service we provide is writing White Papers for clients. Sometimes the labels of these are white [1] as well as the paper. Sometimes Peter James Thomasis featured as the author. White Papers can…

A Picture Paints a Thousand Numbers

Introduction

The recent update of The Data & Analytics Dictionary featured an entry on Charts. Entries in The Dictionary are intended to be relatively brief [1] and also the layout does not allow for many illustrations. Given this, I have used The Dictionary entries as a basis for this slightly expanded article on the subject of chart types.

A Chart is a way to organise and Visualise Datawith…

The peterjamesthomas.com Data Strategy Hub

Today we launch a new on-line resource, The Data Strategy Hub. This presents some of the most popular Data Strategy articles on this site and will expand in coming weeks to also include links to articles and other resources pertaining to Data Strategy from around the Internet.

If you have an article you have written, or one that you read and found helpful, please post a link in a comment here or…

Data Visualisation according to a Four-year-old

Click to view a larger version in a new window

When I recently published the latest edition of The Data & Analytics Dictionary, I included an entry on Charts which briefly covered a number of the most frequently used ones. Given that entries in the Dictionary are relatively brief [1]and that its layout allows little room for illustrations, I decided to write an expanded version as an article.…

Thank you to Ankit Rathi for including me in his list of Data Science / Artificial Intelligence practitioners that he admires

It’s always nice to learn that your work is appreciated and so thank you to Ankit Rathi for including me in his list of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence practitioners.

I am in good company as he also gives call outs to:

Bernard Marr

George Firican – who of course is one of the contributors to The Data & Analytics Dictionary

Srivatsan Srinivasan

Sudalai Rajkumar

Dipanjan Sarkar

Tirthajyo…

The latest edition of The Data & Analytics Dictionary is now out

After a hiatus of a few months, the latest version of the peterjamesthomas.com Data and Analytics Dictionary is now available. It includes 30 new definitions, some of which have been contributed by people like Tenny Thomas Soman, George Firican, Scott Taylor and and Taru Väre. Thanks to all of these for their help.

Analysis

Application Programming Interface (API)

Business Glossary (contributor:

Why do data migration projects have such a high failure rate?

Similar to its predecessor, Why are so many businesses still doing a poor job of managing data in 2019? this brief article has its genesis in the question that appears in its title, something that I was asked to opine on recently. Here is an expanded version of what I wrote in reply:

Well the first part of the answer is based on consideing activities which have at least moderate difficulty and…

Why are so many businesses still doing a poor job of managing data in 2019?

I was asked the question appearing in the title of this short article recently and penned a reply, which I thought merited sharing with a wider audience. Here is an expanded version of what I wrote:

Let’s start by considering some related questions:

Why are so many businesses still doing a bad job of controlling their costs in 2019?  

Why are so many businesses still doing a bad job of…

New Thinking, Old Thinking and a Fairytale

Source: Google Trends

Of course it can be argued that you can use statistics (and Google Trends in particular) to prove anything [1], but I found the above figures striking. The above chart compares monthly searches for Business Process Reengineering (including its arguable rebranding as Business Transformation) and monthly searches for Data Science between 2004 and 2019. The scope is worldwide.

In praise of Jam Doughnuts or: How I learned to stop worrying and love Hybrid Data Organisations

Click here to view a larger version on Oxbow Partners’ site

The above infographic is the work of Management Consultants Oxbow Partners [1] and employs a novel taxonomy to categorise data teams. First up, I would of course agree with Oxbow Partners’ statement that:

Organisation of data teams is a critical component of a successful Data Strategy

Indeed I cover elements of this in two articles [2].…

5 Questions every CEO should ask before embarking on a Data Transformation

The title of this article is borrowed from a piece published by recruitment consultants La Fosse Associates earlier in the year. As its content consisted of me being interviewed by their Senior Managing Consultant, Liam Grier, I trust that I won’t get accused of plagiarism. Liam and I have known each other for years and so I was happy to work with him on this interview.

Click here to view the…