Connected Planning, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 6Visualize: Where Are We, Right Now?

A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.

—PLATO

The most common process in the Connected Planning cycle from Chapter 3 is Visualize. Organizations spend an incredible amount of time gathering data and trying to visualize it in meaningful reports, dashboards, scorecards, and spreadsheets; in other words, turning numbers into knowledge. The purpose of all this activity is to find out where you are performing well and where you need to make some changes.

However, with the plethora of data we're getting, and with the speed at which change happens and transactions occur, it's getting harder to find out exactly where you stand. How, when, where, and why we consume data is undergoing a major shift, as shown in Table 6.1.

We have too much data and not enough information. As Connected Planning practitioners, our job is to help remove uncertainty and to deliver better insights to the business, and the starting place is useful information: on time, at the right level of detail, to the person who can use it to make a decision that helps improve short- and long-term results.

If we look at the Visualize process within the management operating system in more detail, as shown in Figure 6.1, we see:

• Actuals. Details come in from transactional systems and are correlated, “normalized,” consolidated, converted, and presented in a consumable way.
• Gaps. Going through financial and operational reporting, if aligned with the drivers ...