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 change management process

I am of the opinion that we, as analytics professionals, are seeking to drive improvements and changes in operational behavior, processes, and metrics. We are not undertaking data and analytics projects to indulge our intellectual curiosity; we are doing so to drive change and improvement.

When we are talking about driving change in a business operation, academic institution, government agency, or other environment we need to consider the entire process and problem; from the first step of the definition of the challenge to be addressed to the last step taken in proving that the modified functional system(s) and process(es) are operating in an improved and improving manner.

Figure 8.1: A comprehensive view of the change management process

So far in this book, we have discussed a number of salient factors to consider when building an analytics function in an organization, including the relationship between the analytics team and executives...