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

Don't make all the decisions

Analytics professionals tend to be an independent lot. We are smart, driven, and can be insular and have a tendency to want to make decisions on our own and move forward quickly. We can see consensus building and group decision making as a hindrance to the speed of change and progress. Sounds like some of my past performance reviews, especially when I have worked at large companies like IBM and others.

In most cases, you and your analytics team members will know the right answers before any other people in the organization. You should: you and your team have been given the data, the resources, and the approval to examine operations, pricing, manufacturing, and more with the express purpose of improving these functional areas.

The challenge is that you and your team do not own the daily operations of those functional areas. Knowing what needs to be done is a prerequisite to action, but it does not predestine action. You and your team can know...