I’ll admit it. At first I was a little nervous about curating a question and answer column for the new (and very exciting!) website, Upside.com. After all who am I—showing up for my dental appointment on the wrong day, skipping lunch then scrounging the bottom of my backpack for a stale Kit-Kat bar, and forgetting about the bottle of Pinot in my carry-on—to sling advice?
Then I realized what a cakewalk it would be. I could trim my cuticles in the time it would take to answer a few reader questions (if I ever remembered to trim my cuticles). Why? Because I’ve been asked these questions in real life, as a thought leader for a software vendor, and before that as a co-founder of a boutique consultancy that specialized in analytics and data strategy, and before that as a thought leader for a software vendor. You get the idea. I’ve seen a few things.
I figured I’d launch the column by highlighting some of my discussions with analytics and data teams. Questions have come from retailers with shoppers, health care providers with patients, and government organizations with constituents. They apply to commercial companies and non-profits. They’re evergreen. Maybe they’re relevant to your company too?
Here’s a good one:
Dear Jill,
How do we take analytics to the enterprise at my company? We’ve got ‘pockets of analytics’ everywhere at my company, but nothing is scaling. And there’s no continuity. But no one listens when I bring this up!
–Crazy in Columbus?
Crazy, my crouton:
I call this “Random Acts of Analytics,” and—kudos, Crazy!—it happens more than most people admit. My answer to this question is, predictably, another question, namely: What problem would bringing analytics to the enterprise solve?
Maybe your answer is, “I don’t know but no one speaks the same language around here.” Then I would ask if that’s not really a cultural norm at your workplace that’s bigger than analytics. (This is also known as the “You and what army?” response.)
Maybe your answer is, “Well, it would drive economies of scale that would lower our costs, and remedy report-glut, and refine planning processes, and bake analytics in to new programs, and drive consensus on authoritative data to unify decision-making with consistent metrics. We could negotiate tighter vendor contracts, discover redundant work efforts, and stop overinvesting.”
If that’s your answer, then collect evidence of three things:
- A duplicate report
- An overlapping job function
- A redundant platform
Quantify the cost of each. Add them up. Then take your findings to an executive interested in cost-cutting opportunities. (Hint: These execs outnumber those interested in generating revenue at your company, which is crazy indeed!). The executive will be interested and help you proselytize some needed change. And then I would shout a hearty “Hoo-RAY!” and bless you both on your path to analytics program transformation.
But not before I reminded you that culture eats strategy for breakfast (I think Peter Drucker said that). In other words if it won’t work in your culture, don’t do it. Some companies thrive on efficient and centralized systems—and I don’t just mean computer systems. But others, I’d venture the majority, are fine with federation. Federated organizational structures beget federated systems, federated business processes, and federated data. And that might be just fine. Forewarned is forearmed (I think George S. Patton said that).
See how easy that was? That’s because I already gave that answer to the original questioner after carefully considering my response for weeks. This time it took me five minutes. In fact I typed it while trimming my cuticles!
Source: jilldyche.com. Original post on “Q&A with Jill Dyché” column on Upside.com. Photo credit: Manicure (CC BY-ND 2.0) by ASCOM Prefeitura de Votuporanga