Team Charter

Team Charters: What are they and what’s their purpose?

A team charter is a document that is developed in a group setting that clarifies team direction while establishing boundaries. It is developed early during the forming of the team. The charter should be developed in a group session to encourage understanding and buy-in.

The team charter has two purposes. First, it serves as a source for the team members to illustrate the focus and direction of the team. Second, it educates others (for example the organizational leaders and other work groups), illustrating the direction of the team. Investing the required time to develop a charter reduces confusion about the group’s objectives. The charter also provides the information needed to reduce the risk of rework, enabling the team to get it right the first time.

Team Charter Sections:

Team Purpose – This answers two questions: What’s the value of drawing these people together? What problem are they facing and what would be an acceptable outcome? Duration and Time Commitment – The amount of time the team will be working together needs to be documented (for example is this a six month time frame?). Depending on proposed solutions, the duration of implementing these recommendations may require time beyond the team’s meeting schedule. Another aspect to be considered is the estimated amount of time that will be dedicated weekly / monthly. Scope (in scope / out of scope) – Thinking though the scope helps to define the beginning and end of the spectrum. It may list departments included or excluded. The scope, while setting parameters, also helps the team leader(s) easily identify tasks that are outside of the scope, minimizing scope creep. Members – Team leader and members should be listed individually. This provides recognition and enhances commitment. Alternate members can also be listed. The team sponsor from the leadership group needs to be assigned and listed after the team members. Desired End Result – This provides an opportunity to begin with the end in mind. This is where the sponsor can establish goals for the team to achieve. The goals need to be clearly defined. By defining the desired end result, the magnitude of the change becomes evident. Supporting Resources – The supporting resources almost always include other people that were not assigned as team members but still add value toward the overall purpose. Other resources are dependent on the team activities (blue prints, meeting rooms, travel budgets, corporate authority, software, etc.) Reporting Plan – This defines how the team will communicate progress. The team usually has a higher authority that they answer to and it is important to report how the team activities are going and what hurdles the team is facing. The reporting plan should establish the frequency of reporting as well as content. Deliverables – This section defines the outputs. It should include Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that measure the intended success. By considering the KPIs at this stage, immeasurable deliverables are eliminated early. The deliverables should include the documents, the desired behaviors, and a long-term auditing process that verifies the deliverables are in place. Links – This section considers other departments or organizational initiatives that may have overlap with the group’s purpose. It could also include key resources that are known Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) in specific fields. The hypothetical example below shows all the elements can come together to create a highly useful document that boost the team’s success.

Download file here:

Team Charter

.docx

Download DOCX • 26KB

New PowerBI Matrix Custom Visual

For a good start to 2021, I have created my own custom visual for PowerBI which you can use as an option to Bar charts. You can use this chart to display different categories on X & Y Axis . Drilldown functionality works perfectly fine on the report.

Chart based on : http://graphics.wsj.com/infectious-diseases-and-vaccines/

Below is the snapshot of the Visual:

You can have a look at the visual on my website link here : https://www.sshadowfax.com/covid-dashboard >> Click on New Custom Visual button.

Do let me know if you need the PbiViz file for your learning.

PS: I will keep on updating the visual with new updates as I move along....

Query Folding... Why it is important?

I am not sure, how many of you know this or understand this, but this is very important in PowerBI

Query folding is the ability for a Power Query query to generate a single query statement to retrieve and transform source data. The Power Query mashup engine strives to achieve query folding whenever possible for reasons of efficiency.

Query folding is an important topic for data modeling for several reasons:

Import model tables: Data refresh will take place efficiently for Import model tables (Power Pivot or Power BI Desktop), in terms of resource utilization and refresh duration.

DirectQuery and Dual storage mode tables: Each DirectQuery and Dual storage mode table (Power BI only) must be based on a Power Query query that can be folded.

Incremental refresh: Incremental data refresh (Power BI only) will be efficient, in terms of resource utilization and refresh duration. In fact, the Power BI Incremental Refresh configuration window will notify you of a warning should it determine that query folding for the table cannot be achieved. If it cannot be achieved, the objective of incremental refresh is defeated. The mashup engine would then be required to retrieve all source rows, and then apply filters to determine incremental changes.

Query folding may occur for an entire Power Query query, or for a subset of its steps. When query folding cannot be achieved—either partially or fully—the Power Query mashup engine must compensate by processing data transformations itself. This process can involve retrieving source query results, which for large datasets is very resource intensive and slow.

Transformations that can achieve folding

Relational data source transformations that can be query folded are those that can be written as a single SELECT statement. A SELECT statement can be constructed with appropriate WHERE, GROUP BY, and JOIN clauses. It can also contain column expressions (calculations) that use common built-in functions supported by SQL databases.

Generally, the following list describes transformations that can be query folded.

• Removing columns.

• Renaming columns (SELECT column aliases).

• Filtering rows, with static values or Power Query parameters (WHERE clause predicates).

• Grouping and summarizing (GROUP BY clause).

• Expanding record columns (source foreign key columns) to achieve a join of two source tables (JOIN clause).

• Non-fuzzy merging of fold-able queries based on the same source (JOIN clause).

• Appending fold-able queries based on the same source (UNION ALL operator).

• Adding custom columns with simple logic (SELECT column expressions). Simple logic implies uncomplicated operations, possibly including the use of M functions that have equivalent functions in the SQL data source, like mathematic or text manipulation functions. For example, the following expressions returns the year component of the OrderDate column value (to return a numeric value)

Date.Year([OrderDate])

• Pivoting and unpivoting (PIVOT and UNPIVOT operators)

Transformations that prevent folding

Generally, the following list describes transformations that prevent query folding. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list.

• Merging queries based on different sources.

• Appending (union-ing) queries based on different sources.

• Adding custom columns with complex logic. Complex logic implies the use of M functions that have no equivalent functions in the data source. For example, the following expressions formats the OrderDate column value (to return a text value).

Date.ToText([OrderDate], "yyyy")

• Adding index columns.

• Changing a column data type.

Determine when a query can be folded

In the Power Query Editor window, it is possible to determine when a Power Query query can be folded. In the Query Settings pane, when you right-click the last applied step, if the View Native Query option is enabled (not greyed out), then the entire query can be folded.

Another good read article published by MS on privacy settings is here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/admin/desktop-privacy-levels