At the recent KXEN User Conferences in Europe and the US, KXEN announced the methodology they are proposing to support the use of their tool on project work. This is a highly significant move, because one of the things that holds back the adoption and use of data mining is the inadequate methodological support and the philosophical underpinning that is provided. As a consequence of this, analytics is typically a low productivity, hand crafting, cottage industry that is inadequate to meets the demands of the modern economy.

KXEN is a tool that I have the greatest of respect for; it is capable of meaningful and precise analysis and prediction with a productivity which in my experience is unmatched by any of its competitors. I have long thought that the adoption of KXEN is actually far more than just taking on a new data mining tool; it is actually an instrument for fundamental business change, because it can enable management to work with facts so much more productively, it exposes the standard “guess and go” approaches to management as woeful and inadequate. It is obvious when you look at the methods advanced by the majority of data mining vendors and users, who even go so far as to adopt a method, that they really only see the role of analytics in building models. I have long been an advocate of methods based upon a Goal Directed Project Management Approach where everything is set against clearly defined business goals and milestones are looked at not in terms of activities being completed, but of changes of state being achieved within the business. KXEN clearly share this vision and the method they are embracing is a cogent statement of intent in this direction.

The approach which KXEN are advancing is based on the Motorola-conceived 6 Sigma approach which is a proven quality driven method widely adopted in all spheres of enterprise. KXEN are adopting the DMAIC sub system from 6 Sigma, which was defined to enable organisations to take existing processes and improve them in a data led, quality focussed approach. This is of course precisely what a data led management approach is all about so it is an extremely appropriate approach to adopt.

DMAIC stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control. The important things are that, unlike most widely used methods in support of data mining tools, the KXEN approach is grounded firmly in starting with a clear definition of goals and expectations, a rigorous approach to measurement and analysis, and then a clear transition to improving and maintaining that improvement within a business process by control. By way of contrast the methods supported by the other vendors are far weaker on the final two steps which implies that the role of the analyst is only to model, it is always someone else's responsibility to ensure that something is done and that the outcome is embedded into the revised business process in a quality fashion.

I have long been an advocate of analysts needing to rethink their role and that the only way that they can sustain their future is to recognise that they are there, not to build models, but to build profit for their organisation. As products such as the promised Microsoft data mining add-ins to Excel come on stream and data mining becomes accessible to the masses it will become increasingly untenable to view your role as being one of crafting a model in the existing low productivity environment and then handing over responsibility to others to use the model to enact improvement. KXEN are providing their users with the means and the philosophical support to start that journey and be able to really make a difference to the businesses that adopt them.