There is an old saying that owning paint and brushes does not make you a painter. This is the same case for building dashboards. I often see resumes of individuals who credit themselves as experts in Xcelsius and unfortunately customers mistake technology expertise for proficiency in dashboard design; which is two different things. Xcelsius is a free-form development environment requiring skills above and beyond technical aptitude to create meaningful content. A dashboard designer who uses Xcelsius should understand basic business performance management concepts and then know how to visually organize this information for an end user to consume. Dashboard development borrows concepts from multiple facets of design including but not limited to software architecture, user interface, and data visualization. An individual who arranges Xcelsius components on a canvas without strong grasp of these concepts is the equivalent of a painter trying to create a piece while blindfolded. Unfortunately there are customers who have paid a significant amount of money for Xcelsius dashboards created by individuals who recently added Xcelsius to their resume.
There is certainly a learning curve for Xcelsius just like any software application but new users require education in design techniques much more than technology. I have been designing dashboard applications for years and I still learn from experts like Stephen Few and others who write and share experiences, and from customers who share their performance management standards through various projects. The good news for any new Xcelsius developers who want to refine their design approach is there is a ton of reading available on web sites and blogs like Dashboard Insight. For customers who are searching for dashboard developers, you should definitely educate yourselves on these same web sites so you can ask the right questions and ensure that the person building content for your business users and executives is not the equivalent to a blind painter.
I work with many excellent independent designers or companies, who specialize in dashboard design, so if you are in the category, feel free to comment and provide a link to your organization. If you have any questions about any of the companies who provide their information below, feel free to contact me directly.
Ryan,
Totally agree.
“A visual display of the most important information needed to achieve one or more objectives which fits entirely on a single computer screen so it can be monitored at a glance.” (S. Few).
In order to be efficient, it must be approached from a business perspective, very different from a merely technical effort consisting in illustrating reports.
Laurence Trickett
laurence.trickett@velixis.com
Ryan,
What a timely and much needed article. I couldn’t agree with you more. I have observed a tendency in the marketplace for companies to seek out technical consultants instead of business specialists to create dashboards. Xcelsius cannot be commoditized along with “technical†DBA work, since Xcelsius is a primarily a “business†tool that tells the business story. DBAs without business experience do not speak or communicate in the business language required to tell the business story.
Case in point, my last three large Fortune 100 clients hired technical DBA consultants to create different dashboards. However, they had to throw away all that work and bring me in to clean up the mess since the dashboards created by techies did not resonate with the business users.
Having worked at the Board level of a Fortune 100, I pride myself on being primarily a business person but one who wears a technology hat, not the other way around. As a business person, I am equipped to effectively tell the business story in a compelling way that dashboard users can understand and process, in order to manage their operations both pro-actively and efficiently.
Thanks again for bringing light to this important issue.
Jerry Rassamni, jr@pulse-iq.com; http://www.pulse-iq.com
Ryan,
I cannot agree with you more. I am a living witness of your story. I’ve been developing systems and managing IT projects since the time of COBOL. I came across Xcelsius over 5 years ago when under Infommersion, during which I have interacted with you and other Dashboard developers. Despite my different roles in IT, I totally agree with you, dashboard creation requires various skills. I have been using Xcelsius to narrate good stories for one of the leading Pharmaceutical companies and other clients. I am beginning to think of focusing on using it to let numbers tell the story the way it is.
Keep up the good work.
Ladi Omole
Ryan,
Great post. In my opinion it’s unrealistic that SAP generally position Xcelsius as an end user tool. Working with Xcelsius requires a unique blend of skills to get the most rewards.
Component functionality
Architecture and constraints
Data Visualization best practices
Performance optimization
Graphic and web design
User experience
Excel “grokkingâ€
Web & Flash/Flex standards
Sounds like an ideal candidate for a GBN/ASUG debate!
Matt Hawkins
http://www.kingfisherinc.com
Thanks for the comments Yoav. I agree that the Excel design paradigm is a double edged sword. It widens the audience who can approach Xcelsius, but this unique usage of Excel as a free-form design designer tool can create a steep learning curve for some. The unique characteristics of Xcelsius, arms customers with a technology that can be applied for many different things not limited to traditional performance dashboards. Through the Xcelsius SDK and advancement of the technology, organizations also use it as a standalone platform for dashboard delivery, calculators, widgets, and web applications.
A drag and drop connectivity approach with component to component communication would certainly make enterprise dashboards more approachable for developers who want to stay far away from Excel. Antivia XWIS is a major leap forward, enabling enterprise connectivity with the same simplicity as web intelligence. The Essentials Plugin Bundle from Centigon Solutions also streamlines a lot of the Excel hacking.
I have seen hundreds of poorly executed dashboards using all of the technologies you describe which lead me to believe that the developers who create them do not have the education or practice that they should to market themselves as experts. Customers who are serious about deploying dashboards usually require someone who can not only drive the technical development but also the dashboard user experience and visual design itself. I always recommend DashboardInsight.com for customers and developers to educate themselves on dashboard methodology and Stephen Few’s book as a good starting point for data visualization.
One of the terms I would use to describe the top Xcelsius developers I know is business technologist. They can comfortably sit with a CFO to drive business requirements discussions and also define middleware or data requirements with IT for the dashboard. BI had historically been sold as technology to IT, but market forces and technology have forced BI into the other 80% of organizations who had never touched BI tools. Dashboards have been a big part of this expansion so organizations or individuals who want to market themselves as experts in dashboards will face unique challenges different than other BI technologies.
To answer your question in choosing between a BI Developer or an Xcelsius Guru.. If a customer makes an investment in Xcelsius as the go-forward dashboard technology, I choose the guru 99/100 times. Regardless of the requirements of using Excel, it is a proven technology and there are more than enough good developers who can assist in these projects, so my goal is merely to give visibility to these organizations who do great work while pointing customers to resources to learn.
I appreciate your thoughtful comments.
For those readers who found this article looking for top notch talent, you already have a great list to start with.
I’ve had the pleasure of working side-by side with Mico and Jerry and they are simply the best. I also highly recommend Matt and his team at King Fisher not only for Xcelsius, but also for end to end BI deployments.
Thanks again for the great insight!
Ryan,
Well said. Our consultants have done so much clean up work for different cilents you wonder sometimes how the dashboard got to that stage.
I think the biggest misconception that clients have is that a Business Objects Report Developer = Xcelsius Developer. They try to pair these roles and then wonder why their dashboard is not performing and is aesthetically challenged. Because a developer does Webi and Crystal Reports does not mean they can scope and build a dashboard, especially in a technology like Xcelsius that requires a lot of experience to work with.
I hope that developers who are seeking to learn the technology will use some of the recommended resources you provided, and customers become more educated on the skillset required to build a successful dashboard in Xcelsius.
Great article. Thanks for shining light on this.
Mico Yuk
Founder, Xcelsius Guru Network
http://everythingxcelsius.com
Ryan,
Great article. One of the reason such a thing is happening is because, lot of companies care how many technologies the person they are hiring is having under their belt. In those instances, xcelsius design skill is treated a commodity. Those companies who err, correct it by bringing in a techno savvy Xcelsius expert. Somewhere in between sometimes business purpose gets lost.
-Muhammed Ismail
muhammedismail@gmail.com
Another thing:
You simply have few good Xcelsius developers in the market.
Dashboard methodology is not new or complicated: we are surrounded with lots of visualization tools: Boxi Dashboard builder, Dundas, Qlickview, Cognos 8 Go Dashboard and many others tools, some are newer than Xcelsius.
For every kind of development you should have standards, in the case of Xcelsius the connection between Excel and Xcelsius is part of the lesser standards we find there:
Just simply hack that Excel data…
In many places I find the Xcelsius developers are managers, sales/marketing employees that simply uses Xcelsius as a presentation tool and nothing more (again the Excel connection) and nothing to do with BI perception.
This combined with few good developers although you can find everywhere how to learn it, makes the Xcelsius a bit different from other tools like Qlickview which is newer.
I believe that another reason for this could be that simplicity of building the presentations:
As soon as Sap will switch to a direct drag and drop panel with no Excel pass things will be much simple to develop and developers will be able to boost their abilities without the necessity to learn Excel sheets, professionality of technical developing will be simple to gain then today.
Still the question remain: do you hire a BI developer or an Xcelsius geek….
Thanks
Yoav
Another thing:
You simply have few good Xcelsius developers in the market.
Dashboard methodology is not new or complicated: we are surrounded with lots visualization tools: Boxi Dashboard builder, Dundas, Qlickview, Cognos 8 Go Dashboard and many others tools, some are newer than Xcelsius.
For every kind of development you should have standards, in the case of Xcelsius the connection between Excel and Xcelsius is part of the lesser standards we find there:
Just simply hack that Excel data…
In many places if find the Xcelsius developers are managers, sales/marketing employees that simply uses Xcelsius as a presentation tool and nothing more (again the Excel connection) and nothing to do with BI perception.
This combined with few good developers although you can find everywhere how to learn it, makes the Xcelsius a bit different from other tools like Qlickview which is newer.
I believe that another reason for this could be that simplicity of building the presentations:
As soon as Sap will switch to a direct drag and drop panel with no Excel pass things will be much simple to develop and developers will be able to boost their abilities without the necessity to learn Excel sheets, professionality of technical developing will be simple to gain than today.
Still the question remain: do you hire a BI developer or an Xcelsius geek….
Thanks
Yoav
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