Eapen thomas's Profile

By the time a user of the BI suite accesses information in the DW, he/she is already two levels removed from the actual phenomena that are being viewed through the lens of the BI suite. Depending on the preconceptions of the BI user, there may be additional levels of distance from real-world phenomena. These preconceptions have been termed mental models by Peter Senge in his management classic, The Fifth Discipline, and termed occupational cultures by Edgar Schein in his work on organizations. ^(2,3) They are the cognitive lenses through which users individually and collectively view and manipulate information. For example, if managers hold a view of the business as separate products and/or organizational "silos," they may not be receptive to information from the BI suite that shows that customers experience the business as a single entity and expect a consistent experience across all contact channels. In short, a BI system is an abstraction of the reality it is designed to analyze, and the preconceptions of its users can further cloud this abstraction if they are not aware of them.

In addition to its distance from the actual business reality that the DW attempts to model, there is the consideration of its ability to capture the complexity of real-world phenomena. A real-world business involves many elements and relationships, interacting dynamically. The philosophical idea behind this is that there may be one real world "out there," but there are many possible descriptions of it ­ some of them useful and others not so useful. This distinction is relevant because both organizations and individuals interact with the real world on the basis of their internalized descriptions of it.