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?
Zac, I love these quotes! I agree, they seem very applicable.
One of the points the first one touches on for me is accountability. We have to take ownership of the value of the data team instead of making it someone else's job to do something with the insights we create.
And on the second, I've been thinking about this topic a lot, especially in the context of self-service tools. My thinking has been more about curiosity and how we have a responsibility to enable curiosity with our data and tools and if we focus on that what might our tools/processes/teams look like?
But then yes, we still have to understand the value of that in the context of the wider business - including in unexpected ways like on retention.
I am obsessed with the second topic as well. I discovered that quote reading Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene by Donna J. Haraway. One theme is the importance of "Play" in learning, fulfillment, achievement and discovery. Play starts with curiosity. Would definitely love to see a future article with your thoughts on what it would look like if we had a responsibility to enable cross team curiosity\play in an organization - a concept that may give some Data Governance teams a headache.
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.
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?
Zac, I love these quotes! I agree, they seem very applicable.
One of the points the first one touches on for me is accountability. We have to take ownership of the value of the data team instead of making it someone else's job to do something with the insights we create.
And on the second, I've been thinking about this topic a lot, especially in the context of self-service tools. My thinking has been more about curiosity and how we have a responsibility to enable curiosity with our data and tools and if we focus on that what might our tools/processes/teams look like?
But then yes, we still have to understand the value of that in the context of the wider business - including in unexpected ways like on retention.
I am obsessed with the second topic as well. I discovered that quote reading Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene by Donna J. Haraway. One theme is the importance of "Play" in learning, fulfillment, achievement and discovery. Play starts with curiosity. Would definitely love to see a future article with your thoughts on what it would look like if we had a responsibility to enable cross team curiosity\play in an organization - a concept that may give some Data Governance teams a headache.
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.