Search
Close this search box.

You’re starting to learn about Big Data or you’re wanting to learn more about Big Data. You start of by googling “what is Big Data?” You get an answer that doesn’t quite makes sense. The site talks about 3 Vs or sometimes they’re 4 Vs or even 5 Vs.

These 3 Vs are usually defined as:

That definition really isn’t helpful. How big is volume? How much variety do you need? How much veracity do you need? For you, it all comes down to: do I need to use Big Data?

I don’t like this definition of Big Data. It leads to incorrect interpretations and abuse by marketers.

Can’t

I define Big Data as can’t. You can’t do something because of a technical limitation that says you can’t.

Say these next few bullet points out loud in your best Jeff Foxworthy imitation. You might have Big Data problems if:

/end Jeff Foxworthy voice

I prefer this definition of Big Data because we’re diagnosing real and business critical problems with a quantifiable definition. We don’t have to wonder if we really need Big Data because our “can’ts” are real problems that can only be solved with Big Data technologies.

What to Do Now?

Now that you understand what Big Data is and how to identify where it applies, you’ll need to take the next step. That next step depends on if you’re a manager, VP, CxO or an individual contributor.

Management

For management, it’s first critical to decide if a problem is truly a Big Data one. The costs for all parts of a project jump when you’re doing a Big Data project. Once you’ve decided it is a Big Data problem, you need to think about these questions:

If you can calculate an amount of money you’re losing due to saying can’t or how much more you could make by saying can more often, you can make an easy business case. For example, if you’re losing $5,000,000 by saying can’t and you could make another $5,000,000 by adding new project, you could make an additional $10,000,000. To make that happen, you might have to spend an additional $2,000,000 in hiring new team members with Big Data skills, training the existing team, increasing operational expenses such as licenses and hardware. Overall, you’re making an additional $8,000,000 by saying yes and using your data to its fullest potential.

Once you’ve defined the basics of the business value, you need to start looking at the use case, team, and plan. I’ve written an entire book on the preceding sentence. Saying any more on the subject would do this vast topic a disservice and I highly encourage you to read it.

Individual Contributors

For individual contributors such as Developers, Analysts, DBAs, and Data Warehouse Engineers, your path is focused on how the technology solves the problem.

You might be the canary in the coal mine saying can’t. You’re quickly realizing that you’re saying can’t too often. I’ve taken to nicknaming the data warehouse team the can’t team because they say can’t so often (see the story below).

First you’ll need to identify if the problem is really technical and Big Data. Are you saying can’t be there’s too much data and the processing will take too long? Or are you saying can’t because you’ve hit a skills gap? The two answers lead to very different directions. Taking too long is a good hint that you’re hitting Big Data problems and a skills gap requires a closer look.

Big Data isn’t like something you’ve dealt with before. You’re going to need brand new skills and training on the various technologies.

From there, you can make an educated decision on what to. I’ve written an ultimate guide book for people in your situation. I highly encourage you to read it. It goes into a level of detail that you’ve never seen before on how to switch careers into Big Data.

An Insurance Company’s Big Data Can’ts

I want to give you a concrete example of can’t. I worked with a large insurance company who was saying can’t. In this case, it was a data warehousing team that wasn’t able to keep up with the business requirements.

One of their biggest pains was a query that took 3 days to run. This was a query that updated their actuarial tables. The team was completely stymied with can’ts. When the business originally created the requirements, they wanted the query to run every month; the team said they can’t and it had to run every 3 months. The business wanted the query to run over 20 years of data; the team said they can’t and it had to run over 5 years of data.

All of these can’ts cost the business several million dollars a year. Worse yet, the data warehouse team had no ability to make any improvements on speed or amount of data. This was the can’t team.

I was brought in to train and mentor the team. I trained the team on the Big Data technologies they’d need to use. I showed the team the Big Data architectures that would turn them into the yes team.

How to Do It

Ways I’ve seen companies be successful with Big Data:

Ways I’ve seen companies fail:

If you’re running a business that needs help with your Big Data strategy, you can read about my mentoring service.