Training change agents for productive data analytics

The real change agents in digital transformation teams are the data analysts, data engineers and data scientists. Their interaction with the business is the key to productive data analytics in your organisation.

There is now widespread acceptance that data and analytics are core competency areas that need to be developed to efficiently manage and operate companies. This is evident from the increasing number of data, analytics and data science professionals being sought in the job market. Most companies now have put in place teams composed of data engineers, data analysts and data scientists with great expectations on the data-driven transformations that will follow.

Ensuring the data team delivers productive data analytics

Having built these teams, there is often a level of discontent and frustration around how these resources are being used and applied to the business. Often these teams are used as data order takers leading to endless iteration of what appears to be very similar but never-ending data/report requests. There is also an ongoing challenge of making the business understand when and how to use advanced modelling. Or the “we need an AI solution, let’s look for a problem“ fishing expeditions. Not only is this severely under-utilising the talents and resources of these teams, but a major source of frustration to both sides.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because companies that adopt the “data-driven decision” mantra are embarking on a cultural change process. There are programs that deliver training to various levels of management to sway the thinking towards cultural change. But the real change agents at the coal face are the data teams. How they engage with the business is where any transformation is manifest. The interaction between the business users and data teams is the engine that drives the data-driven maturity of an organisation to a higher level.

We know this because the best and successful analysts are those that have business and technical consulting skills and in the companies they work for, these are a highly valued asset.

Preparing your change agents

Here is the question. If you recognise your data teams as change agents, how have you prepared them for this role? Are your internal and external engagement processes supportive of these change management, influencing and consulting roles?

A number of our clients have recognised these challenges and have asked AlphaZetta to help them accelerate the skills development of their data teams. They want help to quickly adopt processes to elevate the quality and maturity of business engagement and data use.

In response we have developed the Optimising Business Engagement 1 day workshop. This very practical session draws on our business consulting practices by transferring basic consulting skills and easy to adopt business engagement and communication processes. The outcome is more productive data analytics projects.

We have delivered these courses to several clients, both face-to-face and remote. Our clients have been satisfied at the practical and hands-on nature of the training and have been extremely delighted with how quickly their staff have been able to put into practice the learnings on their return from the course.

If you have a similar challenge, your data strategy isn’t producing much gain or your data teams are frustrated, let’s talk.

Image attribution: Vecteezy