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If your scenario is such that you are an “on-premise” TM1 or IBM Planning Analytics user and have been “living” in Perspectives and Architect and, until recently, been very happy, but now find that you are struggling, having been pushed unexpectedly into a full time “working from a remote location” situation, you are not alone. The truth is, Perspectives was never designed to work over a WAN (Wide Area Network), across the internet, through a VPN or from most remote locations.

Since Design Thinking is a methodology growing in popularity and being taught at leading universities around the world, I thought it would be a worthwhile topic to explore. Just what is this design thinking and how does it compare to other mythologies, such as Agile?

Way back in 2014, I offered some ideas for when there was a need to conduct a performance assessment of a TM1 model with limited time or budget. This scenario often still arises, even though TM1 has evolved into IBM Planning Analytics, so I thought it might be interesting to revisit some of my original recommendations to see if they may still be helpful.

IBM Planning Analytics (TM1) gives us the ability to quickly and effectively prototype a potential business solution demonstrating to stakeholders and others proposed functionalities and capabilities of a design rather than relying on only discussions and theory.

Even with the onset of Artificial Intelligence (AI)’s recent advancements and perhaps new or at least reiterations of all that it promises, some organizations continue to wait or “put off” any serious investigation of the technology.

In an earlier post (IBM Planning Analytics Data Modelling with Context) I stated that when modeling data as part of a planning analytics solution design, context clues should be developed, through a process referred to as profiling and then “built in” to the data.

Planning Analytics Data Modelling with Context

In the past, data to be modeled came from a single source and was provided in the same format, typically transactions from a general ledger system. In today’s data driven world, project data can come from a variety of places which, potentially, can influence the data’s possible meaning or value, effect how you model and use it and ultimately, whether it will provide insights the business can in fact leverage.

So, what is model serviceability?

Often you hear about performing an application design review on a IBM Planning Analytics model where both coding and implementation “styles” are compared against “industry proven” practices. During the process, naming conventions, dimensionalities, rule-vs-process strategies, (just to name a few items) are studied and assessed.