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

The project mix – small and large

People have short attention spans. No surprise there, but what does that mean for you? How will you counteract the tendency of people to lose focus? How will you keep stakeholders and sponsors engaged with your team and in the projects you are undertaking?

The project mix has a great deal to do with stakeholder engagement, team satisfaction, and workload consistency. My experience shows that a senior data scientist can work on two major projects and multiple smaller projects, around two or three, all simultaneously.

When I first tried this idea with an analytics team, it was unanimous. The staff all came to me individually and explained that there was too much work and that it could not be done. I suggested to each team member that they try the new system. Also, I suggested that they keep an eye on work-life balance and to not increase their hours to try to accomplish the work more quickly.

The team found that the gating factors...