Rick Sherman has more than 20 years of business intelligence and data warehousing experience, having worked on more than 50 implementations as a director/practice leader at PricewaterhouseCoopers and while managing his own firm. He is the founder of Athena IT Solutions, a Boston-based consulting firm that provides data warehouse and business intelligence consulting, training and vendor services. Sherman is a published author of over 50 articles, an industry speaker, a DM Review World Class Solution Awards judge, a data management expert at searchdatamanagement.com and has been quoted in CFO and Business Week. Sherman can be found blogging on performance management, data warehouse and business intelligence topics at The Data Doghouse.You can reach him at rsherman@athena-solutions.com or (617) 835-0546.

In addition to teaching at industry conferences, Sherman offers on-site data warehouse/business intelligence training, which can be customized and teaches public courses in the Boston area. He also teaches data warehousing at Northeastern University 's graduate school of engineering.

Beyond ETL and Data Warehousing
February 18, 2009 Data integration suffers from an image problem - it has become synonymous with extract, transform and load

Data Integration: All Together Now
February 10, 2009 It is time to move away from accidental data integration and make it deliberate

Back to the Basics of Data Warehousing
September 22, 2008 Approaches, methods and techniques from the early days of data warehousing are still applicable today

Too Narrowly Focused
July 23, 2008 The flip side of cloning the source systems is cloning the tables or files used to generate reports or perform analysis. This...

Data Integration Will Break Out of the Silo: BI and DW Trends, 8 for ’08
May 28, 2008 How’s this for irony? A lot of integration projects create more silos!

Don’t Stop at How, Learn Why
May 20, 2008 People involved in BI and DW projects are very familiar with terms such as facts, dimensions, attributes, surrogate keys and...

The Song Remains the Same - Data Shadows Systems Continue to be Pervasive for Reporting and Analytics: BI and DW Trends, 8 for ’08
April 25, 2008 BI may not be pervasive, but spreadsheets are.

Recovering from the Accidental Architecture
April 14, 2008 Business and IT need to confront the accidental architecture addiction and resolve to work without finger-pointing.

Dazed and Confused - Product Roadmaps, Upgrades and Migrations: BI and DW Trends, 8 for ’08
March 27, 2008 Dazed and confused - such is the fate of the customers of Business Objects, Cognos and Hyperion as their respective acquirers...

The Accidental Architecture
March 18, 2008 Like the unfortunate house, many data warehouses are built without an architectural blueprint.

Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing Trends: 8 for ’08
February 28, 2008 Let’s look into the crystal ball for 2008. What industry trends will affect our industry during the next year and beyond?

Keeping the Business and IT Relationship Strong
February 21, 2008 After all the investments in business intelligence (BI) over the years, many companies are still data rich but information...

The Song Remains the Same
January 17, 2008 Technology and products have changed, but as I’m always reminding my consulting clients, the basis for sound data...

Start a Dialogue about MDM
November 29, 2007 Many business people need an IT buzzword dictionary to interpret the rather lengthy and complicated definitions for master...

New Age Data Warehousing
November 2, 2007 Data warehousing and business intelligence have been evolving and getting more sophisticated over the years.

Hub and Spoke on the Wane?
October 1, 2007 Data warehousing has evolved with a DW becoming the data integration and data distribution hub feeding all the downstream...

More Trends in Data Integration
September 1, 2007

Data Integration Trends: Future Shock
August 1, 2007

Separate the Forest from the Trees with Enterprise Data Management
June 1, 2007

Operational BI - Four Flawed Assumptions
May 1, 2007

Four Flawed Business Intelligence Assumptions
April 9, 2007 Common mistakes with BI implementations

Trial-and-Error Method of ETL
April 1, 2007

The Stairway Method of Industry Analysis
March 22, 2007

Four Flawed Business Intelligence Assumptions
March 1, 2007

BI Suites: Enablers or Inhibitors to Pervasive BI?
February 6, 2007 What role do BI product suites play in empowering more people in an organization with tools they can use every day - enabler...

The Trial-and-Error Method for Data Integration
February 1, 2007

The Trial-and-Error Method for Data Architecture
January 2, 2007

Marketing BI Solutions to the Business
December 1, 2006

Communication Breakdown: The Achilles' Heel of BI Projects
November 1, 2006

Avoid Surprises with Analytical Profiling
October 1, 2006

Operational BI - Blurring the Lines
September 25, 2006 Operational BI demands planning to handle the overlap between enterprise applications and BI/DW activities

Operational BI - Blurring the Lines
September 1, 2006

Data Integration Adviser
August 1, 2006

Should You Wait for Data Quality?
July 1, 2006

The Role of Data Integration in Providing Trusted Information
June 1, 2006

Do People Really Understand Data Warehousing?
May 25, 2006

The Data Shadow System Conundrum
May 1, 2006

Extreme Makeover, Data Warehouse Edition
April 27, 2006

It's All About the Data
April 20, 2006 Clarifying the alphabet soup around data integration.

Data Integration Adviser
April 1, 2006

Be Prepared to Duel with Data Quality
February 23, 2006

Clear Communication - The Foundation for Successful Business Metadata Projects
February 1, 2006

Align Metadata and Business Initiatives
January 1, 2006

Training? We Don't Need Training ...
December 22, 2005

The Enterprise Data Warehouse Strikes Again, Part 2
December 1, 2005

The Enterprise Data Warehouse Strikes Again, Part 1
November 1, 2005

Business Intelligence Goes Back to the Future, Part 3: Focus on Data, Then Tools
September 8, 2005

Business Intelligence Goes Back to the Future, Part 2: Couples Therapy for IT and Business Users
August 11, 2005

ODS Redux, Part 2
August 1, 2005

Business Intelligence Goes Back to the Future, Part 1
June 23, 2005

ODS Redux, Part 1
June 1, 2005

Hub-and-Spoke Redux
May 1, 2005

Mitigating Meta Data Misery
April 1, 2005

IBM Acquires Ascential Software
March 17, 2005

Data Franchising
March 1, 2005

Business Intelligence Vendor Trends for 2005
February 24, 2005

Set the Stage with Data Preparation
February 1, 2005

Six Business Intelligence Trends for 2005
January 27, 2005

There's Nothing Funny about "Funny" Data
January 1, 2005

Data Integration Advisor
December 1, 2004

Data Standards
October 1, 2004

Implementing a Data Integration Center of Expertise
September 1, 2004

The Impact of New BI Trends on Data Integration
August 1, 2004

Data Integration Advisor
July 1, 2004

Seven Misconceptions about Data Quality
June 3, 2004

Architecture Standards
May 1, 2004

Shedding Light on Data Shadow Systems
April 29, 2004

Technology and Product Standards Keep Us On Track
April 1, 2004

How to Satisfy Business Users Every Time (Business User Myths), Part 3
March 25, 2004

Software Development Standards Enhance Your Data Warehouse ROI
March 1, 2004

Standards Let Us Play Nice Together
February 1, 2004

Essential Steps in the Data Integration Process
January 1, 2004

How to Satisfy Business Users Every Time (Business User Myths), Part 2
December 4, 2003

Understanding the DIF Information Architecture
December 1, 2003

Ten Pervasive Data Integration Myths
November 1, 2003 These are the myths that drag down your business intelligence projects or keep them from ever getting off the ground in the...

Five Essential Components of a Data Integration Framework
October 1, 2003

How to Satisfy Business Users Every Time and Make Them Beg for More, Part 1
September 25, 2003

An Introduction
September 1, 2003

Sponsorship and Governance for Successful BI Programs
August 21, 2003

Essential Guidelines for Evaluating Analytic Applications
August 1, 2003 Analytic applications enable you to unleash accumulated data and transform it into information to better understand, manage...

Are You Driving a Dashboard to Disaster?
July 25, 2003

Mars, Venus and a Successful Business Intelligence Architecture
June 26, 2003

The Four Legs of a Successful Business Intelligence Project Team
May 22, 2003

From Peanuts to Profits - Delivering Long-Term ROI in Business Intelligence
May 16, 2003 Here are seven steps to take to formulate strategy that meets your short-term needs without messing up your long-term goals.