Two of Gartner’s smartest analysts - Kurt Schlegel and Gareth Herschel (shameless plug) - just published an excellent little paper called “Business Intelligence and Decision Making“. This paper was one of Gartner’s Strategic Planning Assumptions and the (free) summary says:

A subset of organizations that seek a competitive advantage will evolve the primary role of their business intelligence and performance management initiatives to ensure that decision making is made a core competency across the company.

I particularly liked the paper’s focus on decisions at multiple levels - not just big, adhoc decisions but also the repetitive, operational decisions on which Neil and I focus - and the recognition that this is a stretch for those used to the current BI mindset. At only $95 the report is great value and you should buy it if you are not already a Gartner subscriber (and read it if you are).

Regular readers of this blog (and those who have read the book) will know how Neil and I think about this and how we like a focus on decisions and decision management rather than BI’s historical focus on data, aggregation and reporting.

The one thing I will give away from the report is it’s recommended reading list:

• Smart (Enough) Systems - our book - read about it here or buy it on amazon.com
• Competing on Analytics - Tom Davenport’s book (reviewed here)
• Super Crunchers - Ian Ayre’s very readable book on data mining (reviewed here)
• Moneyball - Michael Lewis’ classic on baseball and statistics

Enjoy the paper, take its recommendations (especially the one about buying our book).