Fighting Fires with Dashboards

Transcription

1 Fighting Fires with Dashboards Elizabeth Gray, Austin TX Fire Department Agenda 1. What is Business Intelligence? 2. AFD Situation Awareness: Who we are, and our BI environment 3. Documentary video: the Wisdom of the Crowd 4. Business Benefits: Faster, Better, Cheaper 1. BI Opportunities 2. BI Best practices 3. BI Next Steps 4. Q&A Business Intelligence: What is it? Business Intelligence: What is it? An umbrella term for a variety of software applications used to analyze an organization's raw data. A set of techniques and tools for the transformation of raw data into meaningful and useful information for business analysis purposes. A technology-driven process for analyzing data and presenting actionable information to help executives, managers, and other end users make more informed business decisions that will improve performance. Business Intelligence: Why bother? From: 1

2 AFD Situation Awareness Metro department serving 850K population with 45 stations, 1100 FFs, 100 civilians Fire prevention inspections, code compliance, arson, safety, wellness, training, wildfire, fleet & equipment management, etc (112) emergency response to fire, medical, allhazards Partnerships: local, county, state, federal AFD Business Intelligence Departmental implementation-no enterprise data warehouse First BI reports in production 2008 Over 700 distinct users per year, average 300+/month 60+ interactive reports Total Cost of Ownership $350K AFD BI Environment Business Benefits of BI Approximately 500 GB data from over 25 systems or sources: Excel, Access, big databases, etc. On-premise servers (not in the cloud) Web based all applications published on our corporate intranet. Developers have a program on their PCs for app development. Data Mashup: Technical person writes query code to pull data from various source systems; the data is mashed up in the memory of the computer; business owners and/or Business Analysts design the presentation layer (what the users see; their interface) IT support equivalent to 1 FTE Business Benefits of BI Faster Better Cheaper BI Benefits: FASTER Faster access to operational data Unmetered Water Report Extended drought need to better manage water resources Water that doesn t go through a meter: where is it going? Report took several hours, at best ; late and incomplete QlikView unmetered water app spurred business process improvement to collect ALL unmetered water data Austin Water Utility praises improved timeliness, completeness, usability of report Report preparation time down to 5 minutes 2

3 BI Benefits: FASTER Time to Market development F1 Race Media Inquiries Major risk: how to field inquiries and provide accurate information regarding dynamic situation around first F1 race ever in Austin. 20 hours to create the application BI Benefits: BETTER Improved Emergency Response CAD Response Plans and Multi-Agency Problem Link Low confidence in CAD configuration because no tools to QA complex response plans and avoid unintended impacts of changes QlikView allowed verification of proper configurations and links, enabled use of automated dispatch, reducing dispatch time by 8 seconds Turnout Time Cut 8 seconds due to transparency of data, FF competition Cut up to 30 seconds due to identification of faulty CAD algorithm an invisible delay BI Benefits: BETTER Informed Decisions and Use of Resources Wellness Fitness Assessment We measure aerobic capacity and body fat to determine crew readiness But: aerobic measures viewable for only individual firefighters. No visibility across the department to see trends. So, it was flying blind. We didn t know who needed us the most. QlikView enabled population surveillance fitness by unit, by shift. AFD Fitness Trainers then assigned to highest -risk stations. BI Benefits: BETTER Data quality BC Dashboard Incident Reporting Closed over 600 incomplete NFIR reports in first 6 months Improved Service Delivery BC Dashboard Continuing Education Improved completion rate from 92% to 98%--over 400 classes per quarter Active Directory Groups Corrected permissions, eliminated duplicate groups BI Benefits: CHEAPER Save time and money First four reports published Saved 4,893 hours of data compilation time; equivalent to $214,750 in personnel opportunity cost Ops Dispatch Auto Aid Sharing of resources: CAD picks the closest unit, regardless of which fire department it belongs to Results in faster response to citizens, potentially avoids need to staff new units or build new stations Ensures use of taxpayer-funded resources outside the City is equitable Improved cost control BI Benefits: CHEAPER Finance and Budget Summaries Increased engagement by Battalion Chief division heads These reports were the only way I could understand how the budget was spent last year and guide my actions for planning this year Enables more accountability, identifies errors and improves accounting accuracy 3

4 Qualitative Benefits of BI In addition to faster, better, cheaper Business user engagement Business user empowerment Business and IT satisfaction Better partnerships Qualitative Benefits of BI We can now have fact-based discussions. And we don t lose momentum while waiting for hard data. Harry, Chief of Staff Data input improves because you can see errors. Stephanie, HR You can change your presentation of the data as quickly as your manager changes her mind on what she wants. Kathy, HR Manager I ask questions now that I didn t dare to ask before. Antonio, Planning Manager BI Opportunities BI Opportunities: Business-Led BI The business wants to help BUT IT won t let them! 60% of IT thinks business-led IT creates risks Less than 40% think it should be permitted BI Opportunities: Transformative Change NFIRS (National Fire Incident Reporting System) is the world s largest national, annual, collection of incident information Designed to accurately assess and combat the fire problem at the national level NFIRS coding scheme is very problematic BI enables fire service professionals to optimize data within the current system and effectively advocate for change. Source: AEC 2011 Surveys of Business Executives and IT Professionals May

5 BI Best Practices A picture is worth 1,000 words Get rid of noise, chart junk, eye candy Test, test, test: Does it work for users? Trial and error What does this mean? More useful representation Visualization Example: Try, Try Again First Try Problem: How fast are firefighters responding? AFD Combat Operations unable to access meaningful reports on unit response time: how fast did they get to the scene? Solution Display records from CAD 911 system 5

6 Second Try Third Try Third Try Box Plot Creating simple, effective interfaces is NOT easy Listen and look your customer s reactions cold? warm? hot? and iterate until they smile Learn and follow standards: Rolf Hichert poster.hichert.com Stephen Few perceptualedge.com BI Best Practices: Track User Adoption BI Best Practices: Just Do It Low quality data still has business value Start small, involving business owners, users Lead with the business problem Fail. A good BI app comes from collaborative experimentation. Not everything you try will work the first time. 6

7 BI Best Practices: Challenges Inability to define requirements: presenting data in a useful format no industry templates Lack of data credibility Lack of user familiarity or understanding of the data Walking the talk: data-driven decisions Lack of GIS integration Disruption True user enablement BI Best Practices: Challenges Measuring Return On Investment (ROI): How do you know if your system is improving performance? BI Next Steps BI Next Steps for AFD Strategic approach to proactive community risk reduction City of Austin data portal GIS extension: Google Maps for AFD data BI Governance Assess server, application, data architectures Master/metadata management BI collaboration with partners shared services The Wisdom of Crowds Contact Information Elizabeth Gray Information System and Business Enterprise Manager Austin Fire Department elizabeth.gray@austintexas.gov work cell 7