As we continue our blog series broken out from the “Biggest Pain Points for Data and Analytics Leaders” white paper, we set our sights on the third most common challenge: strategy.
The Problem
One of the biggest challenges for data leaders is noise. There are often so many distracting fires that present themselves as something that is strategically important vs. what it actually is: something that is tactically urgent. With so many demands on a data professional’s time and so many tasks, it is hard to get your head far enough above water to get clarity. It’s the whole conundrum, if I had time to think, I could actually think about how to use my time.
The ability to assess important vs. tactical, to distinguish the essential from the noise, is essential.
When strategy is stunted or half-completed, data solutions will still appear. Necessity is the mother of invention. Without leadership, solutions will come from the bottom up. The problem is there is no guarantee that they are aligned to incremental, long-term success. In fact, you can probably guarantee that they won’t.
That fancy, new data warehouse initiative is struggling through vendor selection, budgeting and executive buy-in? What do you know, Finance just created their own DWH on a random platform with metrics they invented using a legacy database that’s no longer supported. It happens all the time, and when it does, you’re incurring a strategy debt that must be paid with time, money and energy to get back to your starting blocks.
There are a number of challenges that can paralyse strategy development, take it off course or overly complicate the mission:
- Strong opinions with no mediation
- A focus on buzzwords over use case alignment
- Starting a task without a plan on how to finish
- Focusing on cost vs. value
- Failure to recruit executive leaders and sponsorship
- Tackling too many things at once
- The glacial project management approach measured in years
The risk I have starting with an analysis of the problem is I potentially leave you so thoroughly depressed that you surrender, move to Alice Springs and raise alpacas. Don’t despair! There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Remember, strategy is a living document, which means we can improve, fix and recalibrate at any time.
The best way to fix bad decisions is start making good decisions immediately.
The Solution
How do you cut through all the noise, discard the unessential things and then focus on the critical success factors that are going to truly determine whether you’re successful? It takes collaboration and experience.
One of the easiest ways to drive insights and innovation is through collaboration. If we bring multiple points of view to the table, then we’re immediately enriching the solution than if we relied solely on our perspective. Collaboration takes coordination though, which means you need to focus the discussion, mediate differences of opinion and decide on strategic goals that have tactical steps to completion.
To temper and frame these great conversations you’re going to have, experience is vital. Wisdom is achieved through failure. It’s the best teacher. You only need to put your finger in the fire once: lesson learned for life. The benefit of having senior leadership is that wisdom and learnings accumulated throughout a career.
Just make sure that past failure doesn’t make you shy from innovating.
This is also a great place to insert a consultant (see data challenge #2). Whereas a data leader within an organisation might get to craft a strategy document two or three times throughout a forty-year career, we get to work with dozens of companies every year. We’re exposed to so many different circumstances, problems, ideas and resulting solutions. It allows us to specialise in rapidly building effective data strategies based on practical experience.
If wisdom is best developed by failure, save yourself the painful exercise from stepping on every rake in the garden and bring in someone that already has that hard-earned experience. Add that thought leader into the collaboration with your stakeholders to craft a bespoke, effective data strategy that will start to produce value in days, not years
Summary
I’ll finish by encouraging you to set big goals, accomplishments that will transform your organisation. Once you’ve got your moonshot locked in, be relentless in finding your path forward to achieve that aim however necessary. Tactics are meant to be changed and adapted as needed.
At the start of any journey, the planned path is a best guess of what it’s going to take to get there. Be adaptable to adaptation.
Want to Learn More?
Find this information helpful? There are more blogs to come with more information on other pain points and the best solutions to ease the pain. We’ve covered data governance, people resourcing and now strategy, but stay tuned to see what the next biggest pain point is or read more in the full white paper.
Know your challenges but don’t know where to start in solving them? Reach out to our team, and we can help you figure out the best solutions for your needs.
