BUILDING VALUABLE SOLUTIONS

With the overview of the ecosystem of people, processes and machines it becomes clear from the scenarios and user stories of where the data is produced and who needs to consume information derived from it.

Prototyping it is a way to validate our ideas and possible solutions and it should be fast and keep concepts as simple as possible. This avoids spending too many resources on building solutions only to then finding outthat it does not work. The best way is to create hand-drawn dashboards or widgets which represent the solution and test them as quickly as possible before starting with the actual implementation (often coding!). The process of drawing dashboards may also reveal new ideas which can be useful or new insights into whether the solution is technically visible or not.

Many dashboards should be created, to keep it organized we use the Case Actor Matrix (CAM). This tool allows matching Actors with a Cases (we use scenario before) and the dashboard enabling the understanding of their purposes - how would you use it to help make a decision. A logical cascade should be build and dashboard widgets should be reused as much as makes sense.

These conceptual solutions need to be challenged from a technical perspective. We use a Source Target Link Matrix (STL Matrix) to show the information needed from the conceptual point of view. We define the requirements and quality of the data needed to develop the dashboards. The matrix distinguishes between existing data and data that needs to be collected, as well as adjustments and improvements that have to be made to the databases.