Refresh Your IM Knowledge

Attendees to Adastra Information Management (IM) conferences understand the important role IM plays in keeping their organizations competitive, their decisions informed, and their operations functioning efficiently. For some, however, it has been a while since their actively engaged with central IM topics. To help you make the most out of this year’s conference, for the first time Adastra is offering Pre-Conference Tutorials on Master Data Management, Information Governance, Business Intelligence, and Data Warehousing. Designed and delivered by experts in each field, these sessions are designed for those seeking to refresh and update their knowledge in these key areas.

Tutorial Information

Wednesday, October 19th, 2011

Agenda:

Data Warehousing Tutorial
Nelio Lucas, SVP Technology & Chief Architect, Adastra Corporation

It is well understood that Data Warehousing initiatives are essential to organizations that intend to stay ahead in today's competitive market. Nevertheless, Data Warehousing has evolved significantly from its departmental origins: it now has the potential to become a truly strategic Enterprise platform that provides a much broader set of capabilities, and that blurs the line between the analytical and operational worlds.
In this session we will review:

• Overall EDW architecture
• Roles and interactions of EDW components
• Integration of EDW with other initiatives such as Data Governance and Master Data Management
• Review of alternate EDW architectures

Master Data Management Tutorial
Krasen Paskalev, VP Data Quality & Master Data Management, Adastra Corporation
Rahim Hajee, Senior MDM Consultant, Adastra Corporation

Master data is the core information that connects and helps align the key business processes of an organization. It is used across lines of business, information systems and applications to drive operational and analytical decisions. The lack of a “single view of the truth” that can be shared across the enterprise impedes the effectiveness of business processes and creates internal friction. This tutorial will provide you with an introduction of MDM – what it is and why it is so important. With reference to industry best practices, we will review the key components of an MDM solution, the building blocks for a successful MDM program, and the key differentiators of MDM tools and technologies.

Data Governance Tutorial
Wayne Knaggs, Manager Business Solutions, Adastra Corporation
Valter Noge, Sr. Consultant, Adastra Corporation

Since the foundations of Data Governance lie in establishing processes and accountabilities, successful Data Governance depends, on developing a Data Governance function that will manage and protect data assets.  For Data Governance to be effective, identification of the relevant focus areas is critical: for example, Data Quality, Master Data Management, or Records Management. Each focus area requires its own unique set of processes in order to successfully establish the necessary capability.  This tutorial will introduce you to key Data Governance concepts and walk you through the major steps in establishing a Data Governance program.  We will also review some of the challenges and explore options to develop practical, scalable alternatives that work.

Business Intelligence Tutorial
Zeeshan Saeed, Director Business Intelligence, Adastra Corporation

Broadly considered, Business Intelligence (BI) deals with applications and technologies for gathering, storing and providing access to data assets in order to enable informed decision making. BI tools and supported capabilities have evolved considerably, and continue to do so; however, many powerful capabilities are often under-exploited, even when they could easily be integrated into business processes. This under-utilization of valuable data and technology assets undermines user adoption and limits the success of Enterprise Data Warehousing initiatives. This tutorial will discuss:

• BI and its strategic, tactical and operational applications
• Different styles of reports including dashboards, scorecards and alerts and their purpose
• The importance of consistent user experience across subject areas, business domains and access channels (web, mobile etc.)
• The importance of linking information needs to user roles and data summarization points, the ability to drill anywhere and types of OLAP
• Best practices for BI solutions
• Evolution of architectures and their ideal fit