IBM Cognos 8 Planning: A Practical Guide to Developing and Deploying Planning Models for Your Enterprise

This is a step-by-step, practical guide to designing, building, and deploying Planning models, with plenty of advice from three of the most seasoned Cognos Planning consultants having over 25 years of real-world, in-the-trench experience. We remove the technical clutter and jump right to the heart of the subject focusing only on what is important. Written for first-time developers wanting an introduction to IBM Cognos Planning, this book gives clear, easy-to-understand instructions on how to design, build, and deploy Planning models focusing only on the essential tools that you need to know. It is for anyone who wants to understand IBM Cognos Planning and make a transition to this tool from elsewhere.

Jason Edwards

Jason Edwards is an IBM Cognos Planning solutions expert and partner of Agile Strategic Business Consulting. He has extensive experience in application design and development and has effectively implemented highly successful IBM Cognos Planning solutions for a variety of companies. Jason is certified in IBM Cognos Planning and holds a Bachelor's degree in accounting and finance. Jason can be contacted at jason.edwards@agilestrategic.com.

Ned Riaz

Ned Riaz is a Certified IBM Cognos Planning expert and principal partner at Agile Strategic Business Consulting, a consulting company that specializes in IBM Cognos Planning and Business Intelligence implementations.

Ned has obtained a B.S. degree in Accounting and Management Information Systems, and he passed the CPA (Certified Public Accountant) exam after finishing his degree. After finishing his education, Ned worked as an auditor, accountant, and finance director in many industries, such as banks, software reselling, and entertainment. He became involved in system development work in the late nineties, and deployed various medium-sized accounting and general ledger systems.

Ned joined Adaytum Software, the original manufacturer of Planning products, in late 1999 when Adaytum had less than 50 employees. He has been working with Planning products since Contributor 1.1 and Analyst 2.2 were released in early 2000. While working with Adaytum, Ned designed and built many Planning models for a wide range of customers.

During his days in Adaytum and Cognos, Ned designed and deployed models and systems for many large fortune 500 companies in various industries, such as pharmaceutical, hospital, aircraft operations, and retailers.

As a partner/employee of Agile Strategic Business Consulting, Ned has been involved in designing and deploying various models and systems at a large information delivery corporation since 2006.

Ned and his wife live in Central Minnesota. He enjoys cycling, badminton, and volunteering with rescued rabbits. He can be contacted at ned.riaz@agilestrategic.com.

Rich Babaran

Rich Babaran has over 20 years of experience in financial modeling and analysis, corporate planning, performance measurement development, workflow modeling, and process improvement. He has spent the last 9 years helping Fortune 500 companies improve their planning processes using IBM Cognos Planning. In addition to architecting complete end-to-end solutions, Rich has helped turnaround critical implementations by applying innovative techniques learned to years of working in challenging environments. Rich has a degree in Management Economics at Ateneo de Manila University and an MBA at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Rich can be reached at rich.babaran@gmail.com