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Avinash Kaushik

Six Rules For Creating A Data Driven Boss!

We, especially we the readers of this blog, of ten struggle with moving ourorganizations to be more data driven. The beautif ul irony is that the bigger theorganization the less likely it is to be data driven, inspite of large sums beingspent on tools and applications.

It is possible to create truly data driven organizations , but f or my "Guru" talk ateMetrics summit in Washington DC tried to tackle a much more solvable problem:Creating a data driven boss (or the boss's boss or the boss's boss's boss'sboss or….).

My hypothesis is that not only is this a solvable problem, but that it is also a way f or you to be in anenvironment where you can be challenged while adding value to your big / small organization.

Bef ore we dive in I must say that it is my assumption that you actually want to do this and that you have thepassion to f ight the good f ight. Glory and higher salary will be the obvious end rewards, but by themselvesthey are not motivation enough.

You have to have the passion to want to roll the big boulder uphill, here are your weapons………

Six Steps to Creating A Data Driven Boss:

# 1: Get Over Yourself

The absolute crit ical f irst step. You were hired because you bring skills that are unique. It is quite likely thatyou are smarter than everyone else when it comes to data skills . Hence you want to do amazing andawesome things and create a multi-dimensional statistical regression f ormula with f if teen variables thatcould predict the temperature of your website every second.

But your boss stubbornly wants a report that shows ref erring url's and trends in visits.

You are disappointed at how litt le value you are adding. Stalemate. Unhappiness. Lack of data drivinganything.

Get over yourself .

You have to f igure out how to talk to your boss and his peers at their,possibly less data smart, level. Remember it takes time f or anyorganization to evolve and I f ind that lots of Analysts and Marketers lettheir ego's get in the way. "I can't believe I have to do all this silly stuff ratherthan….. " You get the idea.

Of course you do. :)

Learn how to communicate with your boss, or his boss. Give them whatthey want so that they will get on the evolutionary cycle.

Here's another benef it, your boss is aware of a lot more context aboutwhat it going on in the organization and in terms of strategy and f ocus and goals and everything else. Thatinf ormation is crit ical to your success, it will make sure that you have all the context and intelligence youneed to ensure you are solving the right web analytics mysteries .

Solve f or evolution, if things are not as instantly smart as you want then don't be discouraged, leave yourf eelings aside and communicate (really) and understand your boss's perspective. Then f igure out how youcan solve f or him and not you. For now.

This is harder to do than you can imagine. But give it a try.

# 2: Embrace Incompleteness

Many of us come to the world of Web Analysis with experiences in tradit ional analytics where thingscan be counted to the last drop. On top of that we are classically trained to not to take risk and toonly make decisions based on data we can swear on to be "accurate".

The problem is that we live in the most perf ect imperf ect medium in the world: the Web.

For now it is impossible to collect data perf ectly. It is ugly, it is dirty, it is incomplete and no matterhow hard you try it is not going to get perf ect.

Yet we can't resist.

We obsess about silly things like cookie deletion rates. We go down rat holes of chasing down thelast 5% of the deltas.

Not only is that ef f ort not worth it, it is f utile. Simple reason: You can't ever know what the totalnumber of Page Views were on your site, much less every thing else.

And that's ok.

Now here is the silver lining in this dark sky. We live in the most data rich environments were we canf ind a ton of actionable insights.

Think about it. Taking our ads in Fortune Magazine is a completely faith based initiative. Based on thenumber of subscribers the magazine has you assume there will be an outcome. Or maybe we dosome primary market research.

You can do much better than that on the web.

Yet we obsess about the last 2% perf ection, and we waste the opportunity to use 80% great stuf fwe have.

So make sure you are on f irst party cookies, tag as many campaigns as you can in a clean way,collect data and make decisions. Resist the temptation to be perf ect, it is the enemy of goodenough.

Embrace incompleteness and it will set you f ree. Both you and your boss.

# 3: Give 10% Extra

Organizations run on reports and so does your boss. They ask questions and yougive spreadsheets. Then they ask f or more and you automate the production ofspreadsheet.

The other day someone was recommending that the only tool you should use f orweb analytics is excel! Then they proceeded to share best practices on how to writecomplex macros and ref erence cells and reduce the pain of creating spreadsheets.

Here is the problem with that: You were init ially providing data, and now you areproviding data without even having to look at it!

How is anyone going to f ind actionable insights?

Your boss is f if teen steps removed f rom data, you are closest to it. Yet now you have become a reportingsquirrel (I was going to say monkey but that sounds rude).

As the person closest to the data is it not your job to Look at it? Look and understand and makerecommend?

Make a conscious choice what job you want to be in: Reporting Squirrel or Analysis Ninja ?

[Bosses: When you pay people / consultants to do "data work" also make this conscious choice - are youpaying the consultant to be a RS or a AN? Don't hire a Squirrel expect them to do a Ninja's job.]

Next t ime Your boss asks f or a report, give them 10% extra.

You do that by actually looking at the data. Stare at the table. Go visit thewebsite, click around, experience it, then go back to the data, connect thedots that only you can because you are the smartest person in the room.

Now give your boss 10% extra: Your insights that your boss did not askf or.

Make a recommendation. Tell them what is working. Tell them what isbroken. Tell them that xxx or yyy is a better metric to answer the question.

You create a data driven boss by giving them something they can drivef rom data. Not by giving them spreadsheets or reports or only what theywant.

At the end of each week ask yourself , did you give your required 10%?10% extra is all it takes.

Got Ninja?

# 4: Become A Marketer

I f ind that great Analysts are not simply "data people". They are "customer people".

Yes they have all the qualit ies that we have talked about bef ore (crit ical thinkers , curious, commonsense, etc). But a delightf ul quality I have f ound is that are Marketers.

The reason is that dif f erent parts of the organizations care about dif f erent things but Marketingcares about the business with a very unique perspective.

If you want to change your boss and your company then you'll have to become a Marketer, someonewith an understanding marketing principles, someone who can be a customer advocate / champion,someone who can evangelize the purpose of data in creating customer centric decisions.

Sales cares f or selling, IT cares about keeping servers and sites up, Engineering cares about buildingthings that can hopef ully be monetized, Marketing cares about customers and, most of the time,they care about a longer term success and not simply meeting this month's quota.

No matter what organization you are a part of , you have to become a Marketer. Think like a Marketerand execute with that mindset.

Your job is to "market" your data in unique and innovative ways that solve f or the customer. Get anunderstanding of marketing.

Take a course in marketing at the local university, read up on it (I subscribe to Seth's RSS f eed),partner with the Marketers in your company and absorb.

Your boss will love you. Your career will soar.

# 5: Business In The Service Of Data. Not.

Lots of companies are data rich and tools "richer". In f act in many of them extensive data ef f orts tomine the logs and extract and xml and data warehouse it and mix it and merge it and clean it and buildf or scale and BI it and……..

Nothing.

No insights come out.

In the obsession about capturing, processing, storing, moving, shaking, baking data the core reasonf or doing all that is f orgotten.

When the question is asked, rarely : What has all this complexity delivered f or the company? Theanswer usually is: We have lots of reports and know up to the moment exactly what is going on viaour blackberrys.

Classic sign of a ecosystem were the business exists to produce data to employ people to do all ofthe above.

The business does not exist to produce data. Doh!

Data should exist to serve the needs to the business and provide insights that can be actioned. Getthat mindset if you want to change your management's mindset about how decisions should bemade.

Do an inventory, ask around, how many decisions have been made based on data that can be traceddirectly to have added value to the bottom line revenue numbers? [Bosses: Great f ilter to apply f orConsultants you hire as well, ask them that last question.]

It is important, nay crit ical, to constantly check yourself and ask if the business is really serving theneeds of data or vice a versa.

So what does this mean?

When you undertake data projects apply this advice: Do small, deliver in a month, measure if it had animpact on the bottomline (even if small). If yes continue to invest more. If not dump it, t ime to dosomething new.

Traditional IT projects tend to be long multi year undertakings that used to deliver in the tradit ionalworlds. That does not work on the web.

On the web things happen too f ast, they get complex too f ast, and every data project you undertakestarts to decay almost immediately. Embrace speed and f lexibility and 80% good enough. Implement,measure value, if yes move f orward, if not kill.

We don't kill enough, we plan too f ar, we "implement" f or too long,we don't think smart and move fast . Change.

Data driven decisions are not made when you spend 95% of yourtime in "getting" data rather than analyzing what lit t le (or a lot) youhave. You want a data driven boss? Spend 80% of your t imeanalyzing data and producing insights.

# 6: Adopt A New Mindset, Expand Horizons: Web Analytics 2.0.

One f inal bonus tip. Expand the data you use to make decisions, move away f rom clickstreamclickstream clickstream all the time.

ClickStream data is good at the What. We have tortured it to f ind insights. We have done the best wecan with just knowing the clicks. It has worked ok, but it has not done spectacularly. Hence we havetried to take it to the next level by adding a bunch more clicks together and making it more complex.That is not stuck at all.

The other problem with a clickstream only strategy is that your bosses don't get it. There is lots ofconf usion, still, about Visits and Visitors and Unique Visitors and Sessions and…. So when you and Iadd / divide / subtract / multiply our clicks and page views and present analysis it does not have quitethe impact we want, because at some level our bosses still don't get it.

That's quite ok.

Web Analytics 2.0 is your f riend.

There is one important reason f or that: with Web Analytics 2.0 you are talking your boss's language,that of Customer Voices and Competitors and, get it (!), Money!

Most web analysts f ocus on analysis with Omniture and WebTrends and Visual Sciences and HBXand Google Analytics and Coremetrics etc.

If you are one of those consider expanding your skills and experience to understanding andexecuting Surveys and Remote Usability Testing and A/B – Multivariate and Testing and competit iveintelligence and so on.

Doing that will mean that you can represent the customer voice back to your bosses with qualitativedata. It will mean that you can f ight the HiPPO driven opinions with data beyond clicks. It will meanthat you can kindle a small f ighting f ire in your boss by showing how your competitors are doing.

You boss might not care about clicks, but you bet your bottom she/he cares about customers andcompetitors.

As you create your own execution strategies do a Web Analytics 2.0 checklist. How many cylinders(above) are you f iring on?

Can you believe that I did the above presentation in 12 minutes with eight slides? :) [If you were there shareyour f eedback! Looooong twelve mins?]

Creating a data driven boss is not dif f icult. All it takes is some or most of the above six things. I wish you allthe very best, may your days be brighter and your bosses more data driven!

Ok now it 's your turn.

Please share your perspectives, crit ique, additions, subtractions, bouquets and brickbats via comments.Thank you.

[Like this post? For more posts like this please click here, if it might be of interest please check out my book:Web Analytics: An Hour A Day .]