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This is a complex topic so I want to handle it with the grace and elegance it deserves. Let’s first start by describing the Turducken.  If you consult the world’s most relied upon source of intellectual property, Wikipedia, you’ll see that Turducken is defined as follows: “… a dish consisting of a de-boned chicken stuffed into a de-boned duck, which itself is stuffed into a de-boned turkey. The word Turducken is a portmanteau of turkey, duck, and chicken ….” It’s very complex so let’s use this as a starting point of reference:On second thought, this picture really doesn’t demonstrate my point that Business Intelligence is the Turducken of software…. It does however allude to the importance of working together.

To really understand the Turducken analogy we need to look at an accurate diagram and draw the comparisons.  The diagram below is an accurate, real-life depiction of a Turducken one might prepare for Thanksgiving. Study this carefully.  It’s essential knowledge that may be leveraged outside the kitchen within the world of enterprise software, to properly design, architect, and build an elegantly engineered Business Intelligence (BI) solution.The next diagram, on the other hand, is a Turducken you may be preparing, as we speak, for your strategic, corporate BI solution:The similarities are astounding. The Complex Customer Requirements and Data are the Turkey. However, in this case, no one even knows what the Turkey looks like.  All that is known is that it’s palatial in size and infinite in its complexity. The natural inclination is to stuff it with something, but what? Well, let’s start with a BI Platform. We know a BI Platform in and of itself does nothing, but you have to get one – it’s simply a requirement. Once you get one no one really knows precisely how it works, but that’s a good thing, because it makes it easier to blame when things don’t turn out as planned. You know – it’s like Thanksgiving. You burn the turkey – what do you say? “That damn oven never works right! Damn it to hellalouya and curse the three wise guys!!!” What do you do? You throw out the oven and eat the turkey anyway. Why? Because it’s done, it’s there, you have nothing else to eat, and you’re hungry.

If you wanted it done right then you should have hired some help – and lots of it. And I mean lots. This is where the “Lavish Amounts of Rich Consulting Services” come into play. Let me put this in perspective. In the BI marketplace, when analysts talk about monetary dimensions, 65% of that market consists of these “Lavish Amounts of Rich Consulting Services”.  So the amount of help and stuffing actually required to construct this Turducken is much, much larger than it appears in the picture.

Now for the Duck – the Duck is obviously IT in this case.  They’re sitting inside, working to keep the delicate balance between supporting their users and supporting the needs of the business.  On top of all that, IT needs to support the de-boned BI platform, which is stuffed inside the complex customer requirements & bogged down with disparate data.  They are also “managing” these rich consulting services, often with a smaller IT team, where burden and responsibility comes without the required bandwidth to succeed. How anyone can manage all this stuff(ing) is beyond comprehension – it makes building the nav system on the Boeing 787 look like child’s play.  And I mean this – it is child’s play.

And look at what’s stuffed at the center of this Turducken BI solution – the unfortunate End User Chicken. They are precisely the reason why this entire Turducken BI solution was built, their needs represent the very core of the BI Solution, its meaning and its strategy, but yet are the last thing that gets attention and visibility. Nevertheless, they are stuffed in with the rest of the mess. And why does the well-protected, innocent End User Chicken so often get overlooked and forgotten? Because they’re the foundation, and for all intents and purposes the ones that started it all. They represent the center of gravity of this Turducken, but too often are overwhelmed by all the “stuffing”, so their needs are squashed and neglected.  But keep in mind – without End Users it would only be a Turduck – an incomplete, meaningless solution.

OK – so now let’s get to the cautionary advice. With respect to your BI solution, don’t make the mistake that so many companies make – DON’T OVERDO IT! DON’T OVERCOOK IT! DON’T OVER STUFF IT!!! The picture is clear – the more you mess with your BI solution the worse it gets. Before you know it, the whole thing blows up on you before you get a chance to eat it.

Take an example from the Turducken Blog. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,176174,00.html. The advice is clear, and I quote: “Seriously, do not deep-fry the Turducken. The inner birds – the chicken and the duck – will shoot out of the turkey and it’ll be like that really gross scene in Alien, except instead of extraterrestrial fetus blood, you’ll be covered in boiling hot oil, which is probably less fun.” Sound familiar?? Indeed it does. Deep-fry your Turducken BI Solution in oil, that is, take too long writing custom SQL, either by you or by the bottomless pit of consulting services, and before you know it your IT Duck as well as your End User Chicken will shoot out of the Expensive BI Platform, burn everyone in the area, and all the Complex Customer Requirements and Data will go up in flames along with everyone else.

There’s a clear lesson here: the Business Intelligence segment of the industry is the Turducken of Software. It’s one thing stuffed into another and then once again stuffed into something much bigger surrounded by a lot of hard work and complexity. It’s big, expensive and hard to swallow, and if you do it wrong, you get badly burned. So for this holiday season, if you’re thinking of big BI projects, Bon Appétit!

Click here to watch the Turducken debate.

I hope to Blog again.