Power BI Challenge 4 - Wrap Up!

[EnterpriseDNA]

Hello to all my fellow Power BI enthusiasts.

Where does the time go? Another challenge completed!

I’m beginning to struggle for superlatives to describe the work being produced.

An amazing effort across the board by all those who have participated. We are going from strength to strength with the challenge and I for one can definitely say that every challenge has presented me with a couple of golden nuggets which I can take away and consider in my work going forward.

The number of you taking the time out to document your thought process is also growing and this is something we at Enterprise DNA encourage you to do. Recording your work, writing a post, even a voice recording seriously whatever suits you.

While the challenge is the same for all, our backgrounds and experience are not. Therefore in documenting your work we can understand the thought process behind the report and expand our analytical abilities and critical thinking.

So I encourage you going forward to get involved and share your thoughts and thinking when working on a challenge. Any questions or suggestions do not hesitate to shout!

Participating in the challenges which given my diary is no easy task. I had been working hard not only to complete the challenge but all the while recording my development effort and then doing a write up. 

I would highly recommend that you watch the video and have a read of my project update and hopefully this can inspire some of you to share your thoughts over the coming challenges.

The winner

I’m sure none of you envy me and the team having to pick a winner.

A massive well done to everyone who participated and the winner this week is…………

Alex Badiu

An awesome submission which covered all bases. There was some very robust analysis teamed with some very creative design aspects an excellent report all round.

The team will be in touch with regards to your free membership.

I know I normally select a few highly commended efforts but this challenge I want to commend all participants. There were some excellent reports in the mix from experienced campaigners and also some newbies in the mix.

Be sure to check out the original post to review the entries.

Challenge 4 Submissions

Great work everyone!

Feedback

The scenario this week was a little different, and we introduced some elements that we haven’t considered before.

Many companies are aware that digitisation is key to the future of their business and as a result are spending enormous amounts of money on digitising their business using technology be it applications, robotic process automation, systems etc.

Companies implement a technology (in this instance the app) to help support or improve a process by either reducing cost, improving efficiency, user experience or even all of them combined.

In my experience many companies press ahead and implement technology however forget a critical step which is to monitor the technology and measure the impact it is having.

The smartest companies understand how data can help them achieve their goals and can help focus the attention to where it is required. These companies will look to a build a cycle of build, measure, learn and then repeat this until they are happy the technology is doing as required.

The scenario this week was based on the measure and learn aspects and as to how we can use the data to understand the next iteration of improvements required in order to make the digitisation successful.

The data set was simple, and the only real nuisance was the splitting of the time and date (make sure to check out Sam’s video and post). The data could then easily be loaded into a star schema (waterfall method) for analysis.

Several of you went the extra mile and considered some advanced logic around the locations of the store and warehouses kudos to you for implementing this logic.

The brief mentioned some key points that you needed to evaluate in the report, and I think all of you managed to create metrics with regards to these points.

The key metrics were:

• The no of manual scans
• The no of damaged labels
• The time spent store

By creating these metrics and taking a deep dive into what was happening in the app it could be seen that there are several areas that require focus.

A suggested improvement could be to eradicate manual entry completely unless there is damage to the label.

This is just one example and many of your reports provided several factors that the app team and management need to consider which was not based on soft skills but is rather backed up by DATA.

Data is a powerful tool and when we start to use it to drive change in an organisation the results and speeds of delivery are significantly improved.

Seriously the standard of work was immense, and you all did an amazing job.

A quick share in case of any of you missed it!

While reviewing the submissions I came across a very interesting technique and one I’m sure many of us will at some point need to implement.

So just wanted to call it out as its something I’ve had clients ask me about previously.

Some clients like to use a particular icon or visual for their percentage rather than a standard gauge. Harsh Natani used a bee but you could literally substitute this to any icon of your liking. The link to the blog he used is below. 

Harsh Natani maybe you could create us a summary on the Enterprise DNA Forum? 😊

Conclusion

I hope this challenge has benefited you all in some way and appreciate the effort you are all putting into this.

So just want to take a moment and say thank you to all those who have participated.

The challenge is all about you and enhancing your capabilities. if you have any ideas, concerns, issues or anything else you want to discuss then don’t hesitate to get in touch.

If there is an idea or scenario that you would like to see posted then don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Feel free to email powerbichallenge@enterprisedna.co for any queries.

Ok that’s enough from me.

Keep your eyes peeled for Power BI Challenge 5 which will be released soon.

Any questions, requests or queries do not hesitate to get in touch.

Sam