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Data

You join a 100 person company as the head of data. What should you do?

Week 1

  1. Schedule a meeting with everyone in the c-suite
  2. Identify the top 3 questions each executive needs an answer to
  3. Figure out if they have a manual answer, have an automated answer, or don't have an answer to those questions

Week 2

  1. Ask the IT team for the full list of business applications in use across the company
  2. Ask engineering for a list of the databases across the company
  3. Ask the people maintaining spreadsheets for key KPIs where the data is coming from

Week 3

  1. Create a simple spreadsheet of the top initiatives from each exec (let's assume 3 ideas from 7 execs = ~20 initiatives)
  2. Include the general business value (even a quote is good enough)
  3. List where the data would need to come from to answer the question in an automated manner (databases, business applications)

Week 4

  1. Pick a data visualization tool (find a free or cheap one, low risk)
  2. Stand up a data warehouse (find one with a free tier)
  3. Put in place an EL solution with a free tier like Portable

Week 5

  1. Start answering questions. Get some quick wins. Pick the easiest questions to answer first.
  2. Go back to the executives. Ask for feedback. Are they urgently trying to get their hands on the data? Or distracted by a higher priority? If they have a higher priority, add it to your list.
  3. If they give lots of feedback that's good. If they ask for access to the dashboards, that's great.

When standing up a data team, the overall goal should be - Build trust with executives by solving the highest value problems.

If you get delegated to building reports for business associates. Dashboards for people that report to people that report to people.

It either means 1) the company doesn't care about data, or 2) you're not focused on the right problems for the right people.

What do you do?

  1. Give up and try to build 'self-service' analytics (because otherwise it'll be impossible to create value in the company)
  2. Spend your time fighting for a seat at the table with the executives

Personally, I recommend fighting for a seat at the table with executives.