As many of you know by now, I’m the proud parent of a high school student, with all the joys and frustrations that entails. I was recently struck with how much being a parent is like managing a business. Think about it. There are: performance measures to monitor—grades and standardized…

Adam Grant is a supremely practical management guru with a well-deserved reputation based on his popularity as the youngest full professor at Wharton Business School, two best-selling books and a much-read Sunday New York Times contributor. (He might be the next Peter Drucker.) My very first BTBI…

If attending the Aspen Ideas Festival isn’t on your bucket list, you might consider adding it. Every summer, one thousand movers and shakers, CEOs, authors, politicians, pundits, and artists gather to share the biggest ideas of the day and seek solutions to the world’s pressing problems. I had…

The evolving “Internet of Things” (IoT) is bringing about a new level of interconnectivity among devices, people, and organizations. The acceleration of IT interconnectivity in the supply chain function also creates potential risks if organizations do not ensure that they are making the right…

We have executive buy-in for the analytics research initiative at APQC. And I have recorded video proof of it! In March, I got the chance to pick the brain of APQC's CEO, Dr. Carla O’Dell’s about why she so fervently believes data and analytics are such an important subject for APQC members…

As I mentioned a little over a month ago, I was pretty excited about the chance I was given to attend the Strata+Hadoop World conference in San Jose. It turns out that that anticipation was justified. The event was a one-of-a-kind networking opportunity and an even greater learning…

Turning a struggling organization around is a daunting challenge that many people would run from.  Sharon Price John, however, runs toward tough jobs and has a successful track record of turning around unstable brands and unprofitable businesses. During the Great Place to Work® conference last…

Anyone involved in designing and producing products knows that there are multiple priorities when releasing something new. You not only have to make sure your development project launches on time and on budget, but you also have to make sure that the manufacturing of the product is as cost…

In any organization, during the early stages of building analytical muscle, there will be competing views on what the maturity ladder looks like. To sort out what’s what, start with a common language for describing how analytics will serve strategic aims of the enterprise as a whole. Avoid being…

As part of my professional plan this year, one of my goals is to increase my expertise in the area of analytics. That’s why I decided to ask my manager to send me to an analytics conference. What better way to bolster my analytics knowledge than to surround myself for 48 hours with world-renowned…