TMI / GLOSSARY
OPERATIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Definition. Operational intelligence is knowing what is happening in the business now, early enough to do something about it, rather than finding out accurately after the month has closed.
WHAT IT
MEANS.
The distinction that matters is timing, not accuracy. Accounting is accurate and late. A job that lost money is reported faithfully six weeks after the point at which anyone could have changed the outcome. Nobody is being careless; the information simply arrives after it is useful.
Operational intelligence is the same information moved forward. It usually requires no new data collection at all, because the facts already exist on the floor, in the field or in a system somebody is not reading. What it requires is a join and a route: the numbers brought together, and put where the decision is being made.
This is also where the phrase earns its keep against business intelligence, which tends to mean reporting for management. Operational intelligence is for the person deciding what runs next.
WHAT IT
IS NOT.
Business intelligence
BI generally means reporting and analysis for management, and is usually retrospective. Operational intelligence is for the shift that is running.
More dashboards
A dashboard nobody acts on is a decoration. The test is whether a decision changed, not whether a chart exists.
Every term in this glossary is one TMI uses in client work, which is the only reason it is here. The rest of the glossary →
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