At first, your employees may struggle with incorporating new metrics into existing practices. If you’re finding that your team needs some extra support to generate insights from the reports, and use advanced data analytics tools (like Python, Tableau, R programming), then incorporating a data training academy should be part of your rollout plan. This doesn’t mean that you need to turn everyone in your team into the data scientist, but they should feel comfortable enough to collect, work with, and perform basic analyses on data. Employees from all departments must be trained in common data practices and vocabulary in order to effectively communicate and leverage data.
One of the best ways to bring data analytics to the forefront of your organization is through a company-wide data competition. A data competition is a great opportunity for your current employees to learn how to leverage the data they are familiar with. A data competition usually consists of identifying a business problem with a clear-cut objective that teams then try to solve using their data analytics and business intelligence skills. It’s also a great way to identify some of your top talents, highlight the impact that data analytics can have, and improve cross-departmental collaboration.
Creating the culture will never happen overnight, so be patient and take your time. The journey of one thousand miles begins with one step. Start small, identify KPIs for anything that can be measured first, and then build an evidence-based decision routing to form a critical thinking habit. Provide professional data trainings, and celebrate your data superstars. Before you know it, you’ll have a data-driven organization ready to take on the future.
