Book Image

Building Analytics Teams

By : John K. Thompson
5 (1)
Book Image

Building Analytics Teams

5 (1)
By: John K. Thompson

Overview of this book

In Building Analytics Teams, John K. Thompson, with his 30+ years of experience and expertise, illustrates the fundamental concepts of building and managing a high-performance analytics team, including what to do, who to hire, projects to undertake, and what to avoid in the journey of building an analytically sound team. The core processes in creating an effective analytics team and the importance of the business decision-making life cycle are explored to help achieve initial and sustainable success. The book demonstrates the various traits of a successful and high-performing analytics team and then delineates the path to achieve this with insights on the mindset, advanced analytics models, and predictions based on data analytics. It also emphasizes the significance of the macro and micro processes required to evolve in response to rapidly changing business needs. The book dives into the methods and practices of managing, developing, and leading an analytics team. Once you've brought the team up to speed, the book explains how to govern executive expectations and select winning projects. By the end of this book, you will have acquired the knowledge to create an effective business analytics team and develop a production environment that delivers ongoing operational improvements for your organization.
Table of Contents (14 chapters)
12
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13
Index

Focusing on self-renewing processes, not projects – an example

Perhaps a concrete example can ground our discussion to make it clearer and more understandable where we stand in the overall process and the pitfalls that face the combined analytical and functional teams.

Let's use the example of retail store site selection. Before the widespread use of data and analytics, organizations had site selection teams that performed research on the proposed region, markets, and neighborhoods; visited prospective locations; scouted sites; and spent time talking with local business people, local governing bodies, landlords, real estate agents, brokers, and others. They compiled briefing books on the various options and made presentations to management regarding their process and the locations that the site selection team felt were the best bets. This process could take weeks to months to possibly years.

Why is this traditional process not optimal and why does this type of...