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Zac's avatar

Fantastic article Taylor! Well put. This topic makes me think of these two quotes:

"What Valuable company is no one building? This question is harder than it looks, because your company could create a lot of value without becoming very valuable itself. Creating value is not enough — you also need to capture some of the value you create." - Peter Thiel, Zero to One

Replace "company" with "data team" or "data product". The idea of value creation vs value capture is applicable in this space. If I create a chart\metric\dashboard\canvas I may think I have created some value however if you look at it and don't have any good thoughts or conversations (or don't look at it at all) then where are we on the value capture journey?

"Think we must. We must think." — Stengers and Despret, Women Who Make a Fuss

If self serve data enables employees to think - would there be more promotions? Better employee retention vs benchmarks? Higher or lower training demand? Some sort of signal to be found on the human resources side?

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John's avatar

Thank you for sharing this article. It underscores the crucial need for data teams to demonstrate their value. This can take various forms, such as contributing to high-visibility projects and providing actionable data insights that go beyond mere reporting, ultimately aiding business leaders in revenue generation. For analytics or data engineers, it may involve initiatives like reducing computing costs. Drawing from my own experience, I emphasize the importance of not only delivering these results but also actively promoting them within the company, particularly during meetings. This proactive approach helps solidify the understanding of the value data teams bring to the business. Without such efforts, there's a risk of these teams being perceived solely as a cost rather than a strategic asset.

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