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

Productivity premium

There has been a great deal written about the productivity gap between the most talented and those possessing less talent. For the most part, it is true that highly skilled, talented individuals can produce 10 to 20 times more, and better, work than those at the bottom of the scale [1]. This discussion started in the late 1960s and was focused on programming when the dialog began, but research over the past five decades has illustrated that this phenomenon is prevalent in a wide range of human endeavors. "A study by Norm Augustine found that in a variety of professions – writing, football, invention, police work, and other occupations – the top 20 percent of people produced about 50 percent of the output, whether the output is touchdowns, patents, solved cases, or software." [2]

This dynamic is the same and may even be more pronounced in advanced analytics and AI teams. Talented and skilled people are better at all aspects of the job...