Awakening your data

Pete WilliamsThe Decision Playbook

@peteitalia

TO MAKE BETTER, FASTER DECISIONS

• SHARE SOME THOUGHTS ON STARTING AND MAINTAINING A JOURNEY TOWARDS ADATA DRIVEN CULTURE

• DISCUSS SOME OF THE CHALLENGES IN EMBARKING ON THE JOURNEY

• SHARE SOME PERSONAL REFLECTIONS ON DATA CULTURE AND DATA LEADERSHIP

Session objectives

A . Unicorn

Your Company

I.D. Badge

“Data Scientist – sexiest job of the 21st century”

“Globally, demand for Data Scientists is projected to exceed supply by more than 50% by 2018”

The journey to data success…

‘datalake’ of all

available data

Tools to access and

analyse data

Capable Analysts to provide insight

Without all components the ecosystem will fail

Strategic ideasand

questions for

analysis

Decision makers

who understandinformation

Data Literate EcosystemHarnessing the power of data to enable better, faster decisions

“When you want to build a ship, do not begin by weaving sails, gathering wood, reading the stars and assigning tasks, but rather awaken in the hearts of men the yearning for the vast and

boundless sea.”Antoine De Saint-Exupery, 1900-1944

Relevance

Every decision in every location made with up-to-date, appropriately segmented information

Questions vs Statements

A culture of curiosity, moving from rear view to

forward thinking

Analytical Capability

Data Science teams enabling data

capable decision makers

Being inside a data driven culture

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT...

New insight surfacedPerformance step changeCollaborationSelf sufficiency

Find a commercial collaborator

Find a business challenge

people care about

Find an analyst (prefer internal

for business context)

Choose tool and method, find the data

Work data, find insight, make

better decisions

Document the value, spread

the word

Start small…

• Start small, fail fast but be ready to scale

• As you succeed, more areas will join you

• You’ll generate an investment budget to invest in technical and analytical resources

Starting and keeping going

You try to do too much too soon

Commercial teams don’t understand - domain knowledge still overrules data

Insight is not embedded in business context or decision processes

Business politics and ownership hamper your efforts

Start small, manage expectations

“If you build it, they will not come!”. Go to them, involve them, solve for them.

Work on their opportunities, give them insight which changes their capabilities – Make Some Heroes!

Be patient! Choose the right stakeholders, let the data carry you forward

Insufficient data or poor data quality

It’ll never improve until you start to use it, so you must get going

But you’ll need Data Leadership from the top

• You need a data literate senior team• Ready to lead by example• Understand data takes time

• If not, you’ll need one of these

• Could be a temporary role?

“Data Driven Culture is not a project with an end date, it’s a deep rooted, ongoing change.

But done well, data driven decisions just become common

sense”

“When you want to build a data driven culture, do not begin by

buying the on trend technology and recruiting a team of data scientists, but rather awaken in the hearts of

commercial colleagues the yearning for insight.”

Pete Williams

Pete Williams

The Decision Playbook

@peteitalia