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Mind-mapping best practices

MM: Does the methodology derive from any particular established profiling methodology?

MB: No, it doesn’t. It was developed internally with the input of some very experienced people who have a track record in handling complex business processes.

We do a lot of things that would probably be familiar to many database practitioners. We conduct a database dimension analysis. There are some unique aspects to our approach. The way we structure it makes it very efficient, as well as very effective, at capturing what’s needed for the business people, as well as identifying the sources of the information.

MM: Is there a corresponding data diagram or an entity-relationship diagram or some other kind of high-level visual abstraction of the transformation of business data into intelligence?

MB: We actually do have a set of proprietary diagrams we use. We use a mind-mapping tool in a very powerful way, that maps the transactional data needed to solve the defined problem and all the business dimensions that would be useful in analyzing, what we call slicing and dicing, that data.

And of course we bring a point of view on best practices, key metrics, the ideal reporting and analytic frameworks that are the best way to gain insight into a business area. We developed these with very notable experts in each functional or industry area where we work.

So we bring a very thoughtful and complete starting point to the table on day one, and we work with our customers to modify these solution templates to meet specific perspectives or needs that they have. We avoid turning it into a full-up custom solution, though. So we get the best of both worlds—a world-class solution as a starting point and the tailoring of that solution to specific customer preferences and needs.

We don’t publish our diagrams obviously, because they contain a lot of our intellectual property, but customers that go through the profiling process obviously get to see and benefit from that analysis.

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