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Ian Thomas's avatar

Great post, Benn. Your first para about the VC made me chuckle. I'd add a couple of observations:

- IMHO, a (very) important component of being data-driven is using data to define goals/outcomes, and then using those outcomes to frame decisions. There's so much pointless retrospective analysis done (especially in areas like marketing) that doesn't lead to any different decision being made because the team doesn't even know what they're aiming for. So if MTRX came to the pitch with a really crisp/interesting set of metrics that they were going to manage the business to, and a good story about why those metrics were important and spoke to how they saw themselves creating business differentiation, I'd be interested.

- Another benefit of the "counting cards" approach to using data is that over time, teams & leaders develop an intuitive grasp of the core dynamics of the business they're managing through the data (which, as an aside, is why stable, well-engineered analytical models are so important). Over time this intuitive understanding helps people to make better decisions, whether or not they actually use data to make those decisions, because they understand how the different measures of business performance are connected - effectively learning the business through the data it generates.

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Andrew Padilla's avatar

Yes. Its experience. One can think of the best 'data driven' efforts as the senses of the organizational entity. Experience takes time.

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