Chasing rainbows

It cropped up again last week; the dreaded statement from a BI professional

We must have a single version of the truth…

Anyone working in IT / BI / decision support / enterprise reporting / analytics etc. for more than a couple of months will have heard this, and for those of us working in the field for 20+ years we may wince slightly and wish that we had a pound for every time…

The Importance of Granularity (…to Blend or not to Blend?)

The ‘Granularity’ (or ‘Grain’) of the data is the most important thing I consider for any data analysis. When I get a new data-set, my first question What is the Granularity? When designing a new (Tableau) visual model, my first consideration What Granularity do I need? When calculating a measure (or KPI), my first questions: What is the Granularity? and What Granularity do I need?

I’d go as far as saying “Understanding the Grain of your data is 99% of the solution”…