At what point do you assess your messaging about data and analytics impacts to ensure it aligns with the overall business objectives and goals? And how do you go about this?
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Chief Technology Officer in Software2 months ago
I believe understanding the business goals of the different departments is crucial. Once you have those dialogues and understand the challenges, business goals, and priorities of the different departments, it becomes easier to communicate and assess whether your data and analytics messaging aligns with their goals or not.In a business environment, the data/analytics practice is kind of a service practice to the other departments. So, it's crucial to understand the dynamics of those departments, their priorities, and what kind of ROI they're looking for. This understanding makes it easier for the messaging and also to assess whether things are happening in a proper manner or not.
Senior Data and Analytics Leader in Government2 months ago
As someone who's been in the trenches of data and analytics for years, I can tell you that aligning our messaging with business objectives isn't a one-and-done deal. Ideally, we should be assessing our messaging constantly, but let's be real - in the hustle of daily operations, it's easy to get caught up in the weeds and lose sight of the bigger picture.I've found that there are a few key inflection points where it's crucial to take a step back and really scrutinize our messaging:
1. During annual strategy sessions - This is the obvious one. When the senior leadership are hammering out the company's direction for the year, we need to be right there, making sure our data story aligns with their vision.
2. When we're seeing a disconnect - If we're noticing glazed eyes in meetings or a lack of traction with our initiatives, it's time to reassess. Are we speaking the right language?
3. Before big investments - If we're about to drop serious cash on new data infrastructure or tools, we'd better make damn sure our messaging aligns with what the business actually needs.
As for the 'how', here's my battle-tested approach..
1. Grab a coffee with key stakeholders - Nothing beats face-to-face conversations for understanding what keeps business leaders up at night.
2. Create a 'Data Value Map' - Visually link our data initiatives to specific business outcomes.
3. Test our messaging - Before going wide, run our revised messaging by a few trusted colleagues. If they look confused, it's back to the drawing board.
4. Set up metrics to track how well our messaging is landing. Are people engaging more? Are we seeing increased adoption of data-driven decision making? Use these insights to continuously refine our approach.
Remember, at the end of the day, if our data isn't driving business value, we're just creating pretty dashboards. Our job is to make data the secret sauce in the company's success recipe, not just a fancy garnish.
Head of Analytics & AI2 months ago
To ensure your messaging about data and analytics aligns with overall business goals, I believe the first important step is to define what “impact” means for your organization. Having dashboards and data analytics platforms is not the end of the story!From my perspective, there is a simple way to boil down the impact to two main goals: either saving money or making money. With that, you can better measure and evaluate the results of your data initiatives.
In practice, creating value from data analytics, regardless of the department or level you are in, is a straightforward process: you use data to gain insights, those insights guide your actions, and those actions produce valuable outcomes. To know if your initiatives are on the right track and meeting business goals, you should closely examine this process:
Are the insights useful?
Are the actions taken based on these insights appropriate?
Do the outcomes help the company achieve its financial objectives, whether by cutting costs or increasing revenue?
At the same time, everyone should understand how data-driven decisions contribute to the company’s success by explaining all that and providing complete and concrete examples.
On this topic, I highly recommend the book “Data is Everybody’s Business” by Barbara Wixom, Cynthia Beath, and Leslie Owens. It is a source of deep knowledge for me and offers practical examples and strategies.
You can do this by comparing the actual ROI against the estimated ROI for those initiatives. If the initiatives are achieving the expected ROIs, it's a good sign that your messaging is aligning with the business objectives.
This process also helps build credibility within the organization. By going back and assessing the benefits and value of things that are already up and running, you can prove the promises and ROIs you suggested would be achievable by delivering these solutions.