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

Building an Analytics Team

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

—George Santayana

Creating a highly functional and successful advanced analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) team is a unique and nuanced endeavor. On the face of it, the process of building an analytics team may not seem to be different from building any other functional or technical team, but this is where problems typically start.

In this chapter, we will discuss the organizational context in which you and your new team will be operating, and, as part of the discussion, we will outline the characteristics of the communication and collaboration interface between the analytics team and the functional/operational teams. Also, we will examine hiring in non-traditional populations that you should consider when building a high-performance analytics team.

We will examine the possibility that young professionals can play a unique and valuable role...