Blogger: Lyn Robison
If you do a Google search on "data warehouse failures", you will get a taste of the hazards of data warehousing. One sure path to failure is to try to do something with a data warehouse that data warehouses are not good at. That would be using a data warehouse to track or manage non-fungible assets.
Fungibility might sound like an obscure concept that has little to do with implementing successful information systems, but fungibility is central to relationships, collaboration, ILM, information security, identity management, and business intelligence. And non-fungible assets are something that data warehouses don't manage well.
Understanding the concept of fungibility can enable IT professionals to avoid a common path to failure when implementing a broad range of information systems. A lack of understanding of fungibility is one reason why data warehouses and business intelligence projects often don’t deliver their promised benefits, why enterprises have had such a difficult time implementing CRM systems, and why few if any large enterprises know how many customers they have. If you don’t know how many customers you have and who they are, you can’t know how much each customer is buying from you, or understand what each customer is asking for, or manage how each customer relates to other customers or to your company’s salespeople. And it’s not just customers. If your information systems cannot give you an accurate picture of the non-fungible assets owned by a typical enterprise, you can’t manage them and you can’t manage anything that relates to them.
Q. What is fungibility?
A. You can find a good definition of fungibility here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fungibility. You can also find some thoughts on IT fungibility here: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/minimalit/fungibility-27324. A few quick examples would be: ¾” sheet metal screws are fungible, kiln-dried douglas fir 8’ 2x4s are fungible, barrels of oil of the same type and grade are fungible, dollar bills are fungible, but buildings are not fungible, employees are not fungible, and customers are not fungible. Fungible commodities have attributes and characteristics, with type and quantity being the most important considerations. Non-fungible assets have identity (in addition to attributes, characteristics, and type), with identity being the most important consideration.
Q. What happens if I treat fungible commodities and non-fungible assets the same way?
A. You will not achieve the results you want. (Click on the Dilbert cartoon below to see an example.)
Q. What happens if I treat data about fungible assets and non-fungible assets the same way?
A. Your information systems that are intended to track non-fungible assets will not be successful. Examples abound. Enterprises cannot easily determine which data to archive in an ILM setting because they don’t know which data refers to long-lived, non-fungible assets. A large, multi-national non-profit organization does not know how many buildings it owns. The most sophisticated army in the world does not know how many battle tanks it has. Our friend and colleague Joe Bugajski very nearly died when medical professionals could not keep track of his medical condition and treatment (see Joe’s blog post and my related post).
Q. What is the worst way to treat data about non-fungible assets?
A. In two words, “data warehouses”. Data warehouses are best-suited for aggregating, calculating, and analyzing quantities of fungible commodities. For example, they work well for adding up the dollars of revenue and expense for an income statement. This is because data warehouses shine when working on type and quantity. Unfortunately, data warehouses are often misapplied for use with data about non-fungible assets, and millions of dollars of sad experience have shown that data warehouses are a manifestly poor platform for managing identity, as a Google search on "data warehouse failures" will reveal.
Q. What is the best way to treat data about non-fungible assets?
A. In a word, “registries” (another word might be “directories”). Identity is the most important consideration for managing non-fungible assets. For guidance on registries and identity, see "Delivering Integrated Information from Data Silos Using MODS" and the Identity and Privacy home page.
Comments