Driving Data Analytic Team Excellence Through Agility, Efficiency, and Aphorisms

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Hello everyone. My name is Chris Bergh. I'm CEO and head chef of DataKitchen and thank you for coming to today's webinar. So the title of today's webinar, it's driving data analytic team Excellence through agility efficiency and aphorisms. And I'm very excited to have our special guest today James Royster and I've worked with James.

For quite a long time in different capacity and James. Why don't you say hello and talk to everybody. I'm coming to you from my home gym. A great and so and I'm also coming to you from my home office. And so, you know, I've known James for a lot long time and he's had a great career leading really really.

Excellent data and analytic teams. And what's interesting and he's worked mainly in commercial Farm which has a very demanding set of customers, right Marketing sales launches where the need for analytics lots and lots of diverse data sets. Lots of customers who want insights quickly and you know in some ways his Philosophy and if I'm you know, maybe summarizing a James you can correct me, but he doesn't like to have a lot of people work for him. He actually sort of likes to have smaller highly efficient teams, which is interesting because a lot of people in big companies want to have big teams and the second these sort of Relentless and is pursuit of delivering value to customers delivering insight to customers and I don't know James was that a good summary of your background or how would you say? No, I mean I do. I I prefer the Special Forces mentality over the larger Italian. I started my career in the military. So that influences a lot of the ways that I look at things but and it also influences the fact that I actually see data and analytics how you performance a team is a mindset more than it is maybe necessarily anything special that a team does but how they kind of approach what they do.

Yeah, I think that that's sort of mindset is key. And so as we go through today's webinar, you know, James is going to talk to the slides. I'll ask them follow up questions and provide some some other commentaries. So again James, thanks so much. And then from a logistics standpoint, we are recording this. So we'll post the recording this week will so email it to the attendees. And if you have any questions, you can type them in the question box and we'll either try to do them during but we'll certainly leave time afterwards to to ask more questions and we certainly appreciate you taking the time to work with us today and listen, so and you've also been part of sort of Products that have come on from launch to billion dollars in sales, right? That's sort of part of your your background.

Yeah. No, absolutely. I've launched several products in my career been on several and initiatives, you know, and you know, as I think we talked through this will probably hit on some of those those things. I I'll be faint refrain from mentioning any of the products and try not to mention to me the companies.

But yeah over the years. I've had a really robust career working for some really great organizations and and you know had an opportunity to kind of see analytics evolve from what it was when I was a young analyst many years ago. We spent 80% of our time, you know, cleaning and organizing and you know to seeing the data and structuring us that we could use it and very little time actually doing analytics to where I'm seeing us that we've completely been able to flip that and you know now we're spending a lot more time actually doing analytics and and you know, we've been able to tie the date out.

Way that it's useful and it's productive and we're not needing to spend all that time and some of that our techniques a lot of it's technology that you know, that is emerged. That's that's really enabled us to do very cool things. And and a lot of it is is process and thinking that we've developed over the years that helps us, you know, understand how to structure things the right way so that we're spending our time bringing value and for me.

Everything we do boils down to one word value. I know I took that from my old Six Sigma lean training when you're studying companies like Toyota and you know, and then they're talking about and Deming and all the great people who were writing in those topics and they're talking about you know value and and I've locked onto that hold on because you know, you do all these things, but if you're not bringing value to the End customer, You're not you know, you're not doing you know what it is that the organization needs you to do.

So this is this is the funny story now, I'll share the story and I'm sure a couple stories. So I think things are always good when you have a story but many many years ago. I was in India. From at an office of a very large consulting company and while I was there they they asked me

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to come in and speak to a training class. And so I walked in and it was about a 200 person training class for this large company. I'm sure anybody on life sciences and this webinar has worked with this company and I gave my little talk. I was leading an analytics team back in you know, the United States and one of the people at the at the you know, training stood up and at the end they were allowed to ask questions. And this person asked me question, which I really thought was strange and it took me a couple minutes on the you know stage the the be able to think of an answer but he said who's your competition? So I'm like well, we're analytics team. What do you mean competition? So I thought about it for a second and then just what naturally popped out of my head was Amazon and the reason I I said that and why this is really stayed as a core fundamental belief I have is when my boss can order something and have it delivered to their house the next day their tolerance for me saying oh, yeah, that's gonna take three weeks a month two weeks, you know two months depending on what it is that we're doing is not really high because it doesn't It doesn't equate to their experience in life. And so I've been on this this Mission the kind of aligned to what we do as an analytics team to try to match to people's experience in life, you know in another example, I like to use if I go to my local ATM and I take up paper check and I stick it in the bank account or I withdraw money from the bank account and I pull up and I walk out seconds later and I pull up my my cell phone and I look at my bank account online that transaction is showing.

Um, so he clearly that the experience that people have is data is readily available and questions can be answered very quickly and you know, we need to strive to do that.

Yeah, and so why do you think I guess what do you think is it really? Why do you think your search for Value relates to this is it what they're looking for is not just data. They're actually looking for insight. Is that what you mean by value?

This is a very doable thing. If you if you put the right mentality in place and you structure your team and challenge them in order to strive to to deliver a lot of value in a very short period of time. Yeah, yeah that that's great. Yeah, and I think I think all of us are kind of we live on that nice Edge right where You work hard to deliver insight to your business customer and they have just they're just relentlessly demanding and it's not because they don't understand. How are you work? Right? It's because they have there's in some ways. There's an empathy equation that's missing right empathy for your business customer because they have a whole bunch of other questions and things that they're trying to answer right they may be looking for insight, but they're trying to balance.

All other business factors competitive concerns cash on hand trying to convince other people trying to make money try not to lose money. These are all parts of the equation that they're balancing. And so I think you know one of the mistakes I made my my career was not empathizing with the Relentless search for Value that our business customers have and and thinking oh these people are already it's and they just don't understand how hard it is. And I think that's per thinking of your business customer with empathy that and and trying to help them and be of service to them. I think it's also a way to get over some emotional bumps. Yeah. No and you know, if you start rationally thinking about it you have oh you can go to the next slide.

Yeah, you have you have the opportunity like, you know fundamentally when people are leveraging Consultants or they're coming for analytical questions their fundamentally asking for one of two things. They're there. They either see an opportunity or their you know, it's opportunity or so they have a pain point and they're trying to get that resolve or they have an opportunity and they're trying to make it and in today's world speed matters, and and then there's also the You know time is not favorable to great ideas in the sense that yes, sometimes, you know, they mature and they become better. But if you have something in front of you and you you have a an idea or you know an opportunity or you're facing some pain the faster you can kind of action on that the better off you are and they often need data to do that and so like we'll talk a little bit of to this slide because I think it gets into a whole other thing, but there's a mindset that I Really and I use this it's exact phrase with my teams. You know when I was younger.

You know and I I may have even participated in this to some degree III I've seen analytics teams get caught up into the concept of we can't get things done because of the fire drills. They asked us questions

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and talks about and and I've flipped that in my own mind and then you know, I try to help my team flip it in their mind, which is no that's probably not the best way to look at it because fundamentally we're firemen. So if my boss. You know gets up in the morning and a lot of mornings. He does and has an idea and wants an answer and comes to me for the answer. You know, I should do everything in my power to answer that question quickly as best as I can or even at least partially Get you know to address that then we go back and I always talk to the team and then we go back to the the firehouse is firemen do and we plan to do a better next time. We retrospectively look at you know what we did and what could have made it faster and what could have made it better and how could we have told the story better or delivered? You know, the the data better and then and then we prepare for the next fire and I think when you switch that mindset, um, all of the sudden those those what become what we're and can become burdens become challenges and and they become the the adrenaline that makes the team excited because now they want to deliver fast they want to take on that Persona and then, you know talk about the pharmaceutical industry.

It costs a lot of money. I don't even know if the 2.6 billion is high enough of money to bring a drug the market and and Drug development is a law curve. There's a lot of failure in order to get the one success and you know that that happens throughout the entire thing all the way from the molecule. So, you know, when a drug comes to Market, you know in and of itself it is it is, you know, the outline because you know, most most products most compounds are they never make it that far? And so and I need to move?

Some of the WebEx stuff so I can see the whole slide.

But you know when you have that and there's a patent life on that the first six to twelve months. They make or break a launch of a product like this. They really helped establish it in the market and and so you need to be fast and you need to have information because in those when we launch a product and I've done this in the past.

Those initial those initial like months. They are critical and and they will set the trajectory for for you know, how that product performs for years. So how well you do in those initial months and there are rare examples of people who have relaunched and gotten the product going after kind of a lackluster launch, but the optimal products the products do best they come out and a lot of times and I've never seen it where were a brand Team or team had every answer at launch and they didn't have to make adjustments. So, you know, we're very focused on being able to say Hey, you know, we need to get information to people fast so that they can make good decisions and and you know, we do that and and I also another thing and I I've taken this from my young years and I this is probably my most notable thing and the thing I say most is no plans advice first contact with reality. We put it here in a little nicer. I use a different word, but you know, it speaks to we plan the best we can.

Things are going to go wrong. And and that's just the reality of the world. We live in and when you Embrace that as a as a team, and you understand that it's okay things are going to go wrong and and but you're gonna be prepared and you're gonna respond to those you're going to be agile. Um, you know, you can do that and and I think where people Maybe sometimes struggle at least people I talk to it's it's easy to say those things practicing those things is very different and practicing them really is switching them mentality of the organization and not not necessarily the whole organization because that's hard to do but the smaller organization that you call your team and and you know, getting people that have that that performance delivery value mentality, um, you know teaching them. It's okay for things that go wrong. We'll get them right and and you know, we want to be we can't predict everything but we want to be able to be responsive to anything.

Yeah. Yeah, and I think that's a that's tough. Right because I think when you're and when you're building a team the you know, one of my favorite phrases is love your errors, right and how do you teach a team to that in order to actually? Live in reality and not stick to the plan right and react to those see those fires not as a problem, but an opportunity and how do you get how do you meet that opportunity when once in a while, you may not get it, right?

now there's a concept in the military that's called commander's intent and it's basically that is It's kind of a combination of those two things is you know, there is a plan to take, you know, the objective to the achieve the objective but you

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understand that the plan is probably not going to kind of manifest in the way that you plant it. That's just the reality and what you understand what it is you're trying to achieve and that's another important thing is when the team understands what they're trying to achieve.

And and what it is they're trying to get to and that's a whole other part of being a high-performing analytics team is often. Your customer doesn't even understand what they're actually trying to get to and you're trying to help them down that path. So but when you when when they understand what it is, they're trying to achieve then you give them a little bit of License to kind of like, you know adapt on on this for the moment in order to in order to You know adjust to the the circumstances as they are even though you had a plan the plan was just a good way to help you structure what you were going to do and now you need to adapt.

Yeah, and so how does that play out? If I go to the next slide where we talk a little bit about like the sort of typical for the data sets and analytics for commercial Pharma. I don't know. What's your view on this? Well, so set up is everything and Logistics is everything right? So At the end and we're probably should put this on the slide over and use it again Chris, you know value because that's that's the output of all this is the only output is, you know, it's a customer finding what you're doing valuable and we if you're in Farmer, you're in any analytics in anywhere. We have a lot of different customers and when they when they pull up something that's data driven. They're looking for some sort of information whether it's inside or just facts and so when you see this, The structure which is a very basic structure in Pharma.

There's nothing unique about this most companies have some version of this same tools Snowflake is widely used in the industry people have data lakes and and you know, they're they're all by we're all buying and receiving the same type of data and life sciences. But what's important is that you have that logistical chain?

You pay attention in the downtime where you have the quiet time to ensure the chain works. Well, it's reliable. You have a lot of data quality to me data quality. Is that secret sauce? It's that secret sauce that allows the downstream value to happen quickly. So because once you have reliable data you have ways to detect variations in the data, you have a chain and you can measure within the chain of you know, that all the transformations of the data occur the way that you want them to you get them into tools which are well understood and that the the people who are using the tools can can you know leverage in order to To you know analyze and and structure the data into something meaningful and you have all this happening on a consistent way and that that end analysts who's taking that data to answer a customer's question or the customers pulling up a dashboard or whatever the whatever the case is if all of that is reliable and the chain and and you have a proven method to ensure that the end result and and that in analyst doesn't have to think about that.

Then they can focus on the the value that they're trying to deliver and and then they can iterate quickly and that and that's what it's all about. If it's all structured, you know somebody and you know, I have this happen every single day. I show somebody something somebody on my team somebody something and they're like, well, what about this and maybe we haven't thought about that. Well, then we go back and you know, the faster we can turn that what about this around the more value we bring the better the conversation becomes and often, you know, we wind up with some output that is just so much better than what we would have done it if we didn't have the ability to do that, but that all relies and again it goes back to Great military analogy, which is it all relies on the logistical change of being able to get the things to the person on the ground who needs it when they need it in a way that they can trust it and rely on it and then use it for the the purpose of hand instead of having to go back and worry about that and and the more you can get that chain going the better off you will be and who's that didn't sound like great General say, you know strategy doesn't win Wars Logistics do yeah.

No, I mean that's yes. I don't know dinner it is but I know that's a as a principle of you know, good military understanding for well documented principle. It's all about logistics. Yeah, and like and that question of like you're every day. You're gonna get what about this and The ability to go back and answer that what about means that you've got to like look at your whole Logistics line and perhaps it's a simple tweak in

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the front or it's a more complex one on the back. So you didn't question about like your sort of this overall goal and this quote at the bottom. You want to comment on that? so yes, so this this gets to the logistics are set right the data qualities there you have the right Tools in place and again I talked to a lot of people in the industry.

Not I don't know anybody who's doing anything distinctly that different or has something that unique but when you when you have all the right things in place. you you want to be able to have it so your analysts and the people the customers who are asking them questions. Can can do things quickly because you know for that that great insight and again that kind of gets into that whole law curve mentality that great Insight isn't never it's almost never the AHA from one analysis. It is the multiple takes that you're going through the multiple questions the multiple iterations. Let's look at it this way. Let's look at this decile. Let's look at this thing. Let's look at the demand this way. Let's let's look at the trend. Let's run some sort of sensitivity and So the faster you can do that, you know, the faster you're gonna get to those those ahas and so, you know, it's you know, and I I like the analogy now of things like, you know Instagram, you know, when you when you look at some like Instagram, you know, you're basically seeing everybody's highlight Wheels, you're not seeing the multiple takes it took them to get to that, you know, every once in a while. Somebody will actually post that on Instagram thing. I look at a lot of sports things on there and you know, they'll they'll they'll post all the failures that they make but you know, that's that's also an important part of the mindset.

Failed there's no such thing as a failed analysis there is you know, as long as you continue to do the iteration and then and then, you know, go to that next question. And in order to do that in any way this meaningful you have to be able to do it quickly which you know relies on that you have everything set up in the right way and the structures there and then People can rely on the data that exists so that they can iterate it and make changes and and then when you get something good you turn it and either some insight that's actioned on or you turn it into some dashboard. That's you know, you put into production, but that all that all goes to speed.

Yeah, yeah, and that goes to also goes to mindset. So, you know, we've got sort of these ideas that in DataOps or an agility. What do you think of of this this slide and these this mindset change? Yeah. I love these Concepts because these are things so, you know, and and you know, I mean there's a lot of good teams in our industry. I mean, you know, we got some really great analysts and in the farmer industry, that is for sure.

But it's very easy, and I've seen and been part of teams where you know. They fear that challenge they fear that what is question they they have an angst about the fire drill. And and what you want to do is you want to change that to Velocity is like, you know, you want them to embrace that let's get things done quickly. Let's let's get some speed. Let's turn things out. Let's challenge ourselves to be faster and better um manual operations. I'm not a fan of manual operations in any way shape and form. I know what they have to exist to some degree. I Spend every day thinking in ways of eradicate them automated operations is everything the more automated you can be the more people can actually think and then they're not, you know doing that and and anything by done by a human is going to and have a inherent error rate and you know, even though machines also have an inherent rate. It's much less than human beings. And so you want to move to that automated operations and my my rule of thumb is if we're gonna do it twice, we're gonna automate it.

So and that's just something I go for and I always want my teams working on the next big questions not redoing work over and over again. Yeah, hope is not a strategy people have heard that I believe it deeply you you want quality to be integrated into that. If you don't have good quality, you know, there was the company that Chris and I worked on, you know product together.

I won't mention the name but when the data hit our On Friday when all of our data hit whether it was our syndicated data or our Pharmacy data or our campaign data. We ran upwards between 3500 or 5,000 qcs within the first seconds that data hit our warehouse ensuring that things were the way they were supposed to be in flagged anything that was outside of the range of what we considered normal so we could address it and we you know, and and that paid a huge dividend so quality is, you know, you need to put as much effort into the quality of that data because you can't do the end result of value unless the data has the quality and you can rely on it. Um hero mentality.

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That's another thing I go is a lot of people have made their careers fixing problems. That probably shouldn't have existed the begin with I'm I'm a bigger fan. I'm not having the problems exist, which means you need to be people processes. I like a saying, you know, we standardized to do more not less, you know, when we want to rely on on consistent structured processes not fixing things.

they go wrong and and Perfection is just it's a bad mindset, you know Perfection is the output of Of you know multiple iterations, but that first rate and you know, and you see the Civil a lot of people where they you know, before they show something to the customer they want it to be perfect, you know, and and even though this takes a little bit of negotiating and and getting your customers on the right page.

I feel they respond better when you show them put value get some feedback and when they know that you can turn that around and bring something back very quickly. They they also like that because that helps them form their thinking so I'm very much like hey, let's just get to 70 80% get in front of the customer get their thoughts get some additional feedback and then, you know move on to the next thing and that takes a little bit of you know,

Working with the customer that kind of understand that and and you also have to own the fact that in order for this to work. Well, you've got delivered. You've got a you've got to turn it around quickly. So they see that value. Yeah, and how do you I've heard? That's what bringing up this concept of 70% Right? Some people say, oh our customers don't want to give us time, right?

And how do you answer that sort of question?

Well, you have a lot of customers and people have different personalities, but I I would say first and foremost if you're not getting time from your customers. You have to look inside yourself as to why and and the answer could very well be you that you're not bringing the value that they see and and and even though let's start. Um, I think high performance teams would look at the world that way and say yeah, you know, I wouldn't when we're getting in front of the customer we bring in value then there's the tendency to equate value with perfection, you know, but but really value is with is with knowledge and and soft provoking Insight or or looking at things and so I I generally have not had much Experience with people not wanting time as long as we're bringing them things that they that really are intriguing and insightful and and and often, you know, we find that, you know, we don't have enough time in the 45 minute hour meeting to get to everything we we want to do. So if you're not getting that time.

The first place I would look at the team is you as to you know, what is it that you're not bringing the customer that it engages them because especially in our industry people love data. You know with the right front data in front of them and you know, it's it's hard to get away from you know, hard them to get away from it and they ask a lot of questions and you know, if you can, you know, feed that mentality of being able to get them quick answers to those questions, you know people crave to have that that information because I help some make good decisions.

Yeah, and when you're speaking of your customer, like just be clear to our audience. I could who do you envision your customer is it's sort of a VP of marketing BPS sales everybody in our industry from a sales rep who's standing in front of a doctor, you know, you know talking about and educating them on a product to the CEO of our company who has to make an investing decisions and everybody in between.

We don't we don't distinguish. Um between them as you know, everybody has a need the company invests heavily and and and I'm most pharmaceutical companies do invest heavily in having analytics teams and investing in information that that helps people make the best decisions. So everybody's a customer our marketing. Our marketing teams are our executives are our sales reps and you know, and in the end also our our https and our our patients our customers probably, you know, not probably the most important customers and and you know, all the things we're doing are hoping us.

Help the organization deliver the value that they need in order to use the products that you know, the industry makes available to the betterment of treatment of disease. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and let's let's keep this whole like customer and value. Let's her stay on this theme here and so this You know, it's kind of like it's almost a superpower.

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Mindset right? Like how do you get your customer to be super-powered? And and could you talk about that like because that's I think what you're really trying to say here. It's like, you know, we're the entire date in analytics function is trying to influence some people on the business side and make them super power to make better data informed decisions, right?

Yeah, I mean what what makes people comfortable is is confidence in predictability. And I mean, it's not it's not it's you know, it's it's not too varied amongst people to say. You know if I reliably know. If I do X I will get y I become very confident in that and that becomes a superpower.

So when your customer reliably knows that they can come and ask you a question and they're going to get an answer. Um, and they're gonna get an answer fast and and that answers gonna be of a level of quality, you know, not for Perfection, but a level quality that helps them make the decision.

It inspires them to have that creative thing. I mean to ask more questions and be more confident and and you know have this. Superpower mentality, however, when people are not accustomed and and getting the outcome, they become hyper focused on on that not being able to achieve the outcome and then they avoid that because you know, that's not that's not the satisfying um thing for human beings the want something and then not be able to achieve it.

So they find other ways to go it and it makes them less.

Engaged with the with the data or the thing so I I think the if you can consistently deliver. quickly Um, you know value you are you are setting it up that that your customers, you know feel. empowered to think big ask more questions and and and dig in the things deeper because they know that you're gonna deliver that not that's a lot of weight to put on us analytics team. Um, but it can also be a very fulfilling thing. I mean one of the things you said, I like smaller teens I do and I like my teams to be able to work on a variety of things because I think it you know, the It broadens their perspective on things, you know, when they when they work on a broad range of analytics and they see the business across the Spectrum and I'm always trying to train everybody in the team to take a role like mine one day. And so you want them to have that broad understanding across the the chain or you know across the entire business but it's it's very satisfying and engaging even for the analyst when they're when they're getting this question one day and it's this cool thing they get to do and they're getting this question the next day and as other cool thing they get to do and it and when they can deliver and and they see the customers happy. That's also very like You know, that's that's a very addicting healthy Behavior to have for people to to, you know be able to be confident you can deliver and you know, the person that you're talking to is confident you can deliver.

Yeah. Yeah, and it's really it's like just a better way to work that sort of focusing on delivering value and that but maybe you can help me with this. Like I've you know, I talked to a lot of companies and there's a whole bunch of people who are they're kind of exhibiting sort of value avoidance behavior. Like actually don't want to deliver value to the customer. They kind of want to they almost want to say one step away from the customer delivering value, and I talked to A big Pharma company that you may know a couple years back as someone on the it side and that's just asking the sort of open-ended question.

You know, how do you define success in a project and and they sort of thought about it and said well we completed our project tasks on time. And you know, we got all the tasks done. And then I said well is anyone using it he goes? Well, I don't know, you know, I'm focused on getting my test done. And so how does that like, how do you do you see that? They're sort of people in an organization are sort of value avoidant, and they're sort of focused on on tasks and not on outcomes.

I know that exists.

you know, I think I think the pressure on analytics teams and my peers is

You know such that, you know if you have that mindset it, you know. It would be very very hard for team. So I know that that is a an existing mindset that some people have. I hate to say I don't think there's a special trick. to to switching that that is

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that is a it has to be a conscious decision that you make as a team to say. We're going to put all this stuff aside. And you know, there was I I actually maybe a related story.

But it's a very impactful story. People can go look this up. I don't know how much it is. But there was a medical group that wasn't it still exists a very prominent Medical Group in gastroenterology called Minnesota gastroenterology. And um, I was working in a role at a big Pharma company and I had the pleasure of kind of engaging with them on some Consulting thing that we were doing with them.

And they tell the story. It's actually quite a beautiful Story how they were on the verge. They are one of the largest if not the largest maybe the second largest or at least they were, you know several years ago, um medical practices in the United States and group practices and they were about to go out of business. And so all the Physicians took a retreat and this is the way they tell the story and they took the retreat and you know, basically they hired some Consultants to facilitate the retreat and Often said you guys are a miserable group of Physicians. You should break up and split your thing up. You don't like each other you're bad at business, you know, all these things and and so the the the Consultants left as a story was told to me and I've never forgotten the story. I can see the person tell it to me this day because it was that impactful on my way of doing things.

And they they roll up their sleeves and they made a decision then that they were going to do things differently and they threw out the book. I mean, they threw out the book of medical practice and and some of the examples of the way, they threw out the book is they determined that they would no longer be this thing like a doctor has a patient a patient belongs to the practice when the when the patient calls, you know, they're gonna get the next Doctor that's available. Um, and you know in so the the prevailing thing and Medicine would be oh my God people would hate that because you know, people want their doctor like your doctor and your doctor, you know, tell Dr. Smith Dr. Whoever, you know, they are they are my doctor.

Well, not only did that and they made many other changes financially otherwise, but this is a one that's always stuck in my head that little change. Cascaded into a couple of really important things one their outcomes became better and measure will be better and they published them and why did their outcomes became better?

Because of you know, Dr. So-and-so saw patient and the other doctor saw patient and they're sitting in the lunchroom talking to each other all of us under collaborating on the patient. And guess what collaboration made better outcomes. Also, you know it takes a long time when somebody comes out of medical school to build up their panel, you know, they come in and they gotta get patients and it takes you know significant portion of time for a doctor to do that in many specialties.

Their doctors when they hired somebody new right on medical school. They had a full panel day one because they were just the next appointment and there were all these benefits but it was a conscious decision. They made an arrest they took to turn it out and I think people have to just Do that you have to decide as a team. You're gonna become a value-based team. You're going to embrace the things you don't do. Well you're gonna learn to do them better. You're not going to let circumstances or all the things around. You become the reasons why you can't accomplish the mission and then you're gonna go on accomplish the mission and then if you do find obstacles in your way, you're gonna build business cases to do that and in my experiences, Most people want us to be successful because they rely on our success and if we bring them good reasons why we should do something they they will they will not always but they more often than not have embraced them.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean I think that applies to anything being sort of a value delivery based organization, right and that's applies to data analytic teams. I think even running a company I try to do it and it's it's harder it's better but it's harder in some ways right because it's better that you see the results and everyone gets to be the results the other challenges. There's really no place to hide when you don't get the results and you know, you got to sort of face up to your problems and more.

I don't know if you could comment on that.

Yeah, um. So I mean but you kind of set it the right way is.

Another another story. I'll tell is it's I actually was part of the same story where I went to Minnesota Gastroenterology. I I was you know meeting with some other practices. I noticed very distinctly that when you went to the practices that were kind of understood in the industry to be the thought leaders, you know, they were the the, you

00:40:00

know centers of excellence and stuff. They have this General propensity. I didn't you know, there's no way you can qualify this but it was just my experience.

They always were talking about everything they were working on to do better. Um, and then when you went to practices that weren't bad practices, but they were they were just more your normal mainstream practices. They were always talking about everything they did well and that's always kind of stuck in my head this mindset of you know, if you can't Embrace first and foremost. What can we do better?

Um, if you don't Embrace that then it's very very hard for you to and embrace it as a team. It's it's very very hard for you to cultivate that value mindset. You know, you just you just need you need to kind of be open and honest and and not in a critical negative way but a critical, you know, this is the state today. This is the state that we want to be and these are the steps that we get to it and then measuring that you know, and I'm very influenced by my Original Six Sigma lean training from all those in many years ago. Um, you know the car the company I started my career with which is a very large Pharma company, you know, I was very generous and investing in us and and those types of ways, but just at that that process of being able to analyze how to be better is is critical to a team and if you don't commit some ongoing regular time to that you're really kind of missing a great opportunity for you to do the things that that help you believe bring value because I tell you what, I talked a lot of people the techniques the Technologies the processes they don't vary a lot, but the outcomes do and then so you have to look someplace else for the out why the outcomes very And and it's not in the fact that somebody uses Snowflake and somebody uses something else and it's not in. You know, somebody has Tableau and somebody uses Power BI or it's not in that somebody has a more supportive boss. It is in the mindset of that team and how they performance and organization.

Yeah. Yeah, I I can't agree right and there's sort of the they're sort of the the tool fetishes right? I've got a super tool. It makes me super powerful. I I'm not a I'm not a believer in that. It's just that that very hard thing to focus on value to try to align your team to Value try to live with the fact that you aren't delivering value and improve and sort of Love That continuous cycle of improvement and I would agree to your your comments about the successful practices focus on talk about their problems in the mediocre ones talk about their successes. I think that's a really and I've noticed that in data analytics teams too. And so I mean I was thinking my career sort of having bosses who I was attracted to and I was young because they they were awesome. They talked about all how great people were doing and how great you are and you sort of got wrapped up in that that BS and so the other part I like about this management philosophy. It's just it's less BS right because you're really trying to find because in some ways you're trying to find You have a lot of you always in any team have a lot of problems and it's the search for the best the most important problem that you need to solve. Now that has the highest leverage. That's actually really interesting.

I find and is that it like it's really trying to find. The problems that have leverage that you can make your team better today and also, you know answer give value today, but also pays dividends down the line. Yeah, I I like the concept of the hinge activities and when I say that

It's it's in my mind and I use this terminology hinge. It's those those activities you focus on that open the door to do other things and I think if you are focused on the big picture, you're focus on those activities. There is the immediate need and the immediate need doesn't go away and it's you know, and I think that's an important part of the mindset which I've said before is it's why you're here. It's what the organizations paying you and and supporting to do.

but in order to be really successful in the future, you've got a you've got to focus on those those those things which really gets into the things like the data part the things that nobody else really even knows about often, you know, the data quality the structuring the data in such a way that it's readily the the being able to you know, you know access it and in a variety of ways the practice, you know analysts are you know, you know very much like athletes they require practice and doing things in order to do that. So, you know often I'm a big plan of you know, even even before we we go into

00:45:00

something that you know, we're we're getting some level of practice into in training and not just training to class but real training that sits with people so they become more proficient. And and you know, and that's also an important part of making sure your teams get a diversity of work is you know, you may do a market mix model and then you may be working in some, you know claims analysis.

But I can't and I think it's most people's experiences the ahas that can happen in between those two things. I I had a A person once many years ago. I was working on a project with and I told this person I'm watching them do some work in Excel and I said, you know, we can automate that.

He's like, oh, I would never want that like why did you do that like Because this is where I do my thinking this is where I learn. Um, and you know, that's that's that's you know, so that that propagation of many things is is important. But in order to have that that ability to have the luxury of doing that you've got to be, you know, very rigorous about the downstream stuff that allows that to occur Yeah. Yeah, and so let's let's skip ahead a couple slides here too another sort of management topic because we're getting to about 10 minutes left is is really You know focusing on value focusing on cross cross training helping your team do better or focus on these hinge events. How do you measure that your team measure the results of your team because values such a Fuzzy thing right? How do you tell that your team is actually moving forward from a like how do you get metrics about your team and they're worth that they do.

So there's a variety of ways we look at this and I'm constantly evolving my own thinking on this is with other things. and the first off it's there is no survey but you know as

A leader, you know you you're looking at things first of all, there's those things that you can't measure you know, when you talking to somebody they are they talking about what they're not getting or they're engaging with you with what you know, the data that you've provided them in a way that you're talking about the strategy are they talking about?

And these are some of the high level things that I talking about. Well, I don't trust that data are you know, it's that or or are they talking to you? Like the market share is growing. And what does that mean? So that's that's like a very high level thing I look for um, you know, are we getting a plethora questions, you know, you know and then I do pay attention to some of those things like How long does it take to turn something around you know how fast can we do that? And and then I I think probably next to that.

I don't look for the customer satisfaction in a sense that the customers happy. I look at the customer satisfaction for the fact of how they're engaging with the data, you know, are they? Looking at it for the purpose that we gave it to them to make decisions. If you're doing that you're that's value you're bringing them and they may or may not ascribe that to you, you know, and that's that's fine. And that's a little bit on the leadership side and maybe something I'm not done well in my career as well as I'd like to do and and and focus on doing now, which is You know making sure that the organization knows what the team.

You know does um, yeah, so that's the customer where the team I literally look how they happy and satisfied, you know, are they engaged are they enthralled and and and and if you mix those two things and those things are you're getting that good pulse that people are getting data and and people aren't necessarily all that data you gave me is great. I mean, that's not the play praise you're looking for but you're looking for you know, I was looking at that data that someone so sent me and you know, I think it means this that and the other that's the thing you want your customers doing and your teams are engaged and enthralled and they're working, you know as a team.

And then you're turning things around quickly. You know, we do measure data errors, you know, we don't we don't measure them in the fact that we don't want them. We measure them. In fact, it's how quickly it takes us to catch them and how fast we can fix them. Those are very different things because you can't stop errors, you know, you can you can limit them dramatically because of you know, good planning good thinking but you can't stop them and you don't you don't want to have people afraid of them. So those are kind of some of the high level things you know that I look at to say okay, you know things are working the way and then we do measure harder, you know tickets which are your velocity and you know, how many bugs you have. You know, how many things are you you know, you being able to close, you know, how long does it take to turn something around? Yeah, and

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and then really I also look at how much of what we're doing. Is automated, you know, because you know you really want. A lot of the questions you're going to get are predictable. And they don't vary in banking. They probably don't very much and Farmer. They don't very very much in manufacturing. They they may vary for the type of manufacturing but probably not distinctly that much. Yeah, and so, you know, like take some time and put the predictable things in place so you can work on the cool stuff.

Yeah, and you think these metrics change there was a question from the audience depending upon whether your team is actually do delivering Insight directly to the customer doing analytics and dashboarding or whether they're a data team who's trying to give. Give data to an analyst team or you know people who are a data ingest team. Do you think those these metrics vary or they're more important metrics for one team versus the other.

I I you know, it's that's a hard question to answer. You know. I I think if you if you are a downstream if you're in a larger organization that has a little bit more of a siled structure which you know It's not necessarily bad. Sometimes larger organizations just have to be that way because of the size of the organization and how they have to set up their things.

You know, I would add a a component into this for some of these teams that don't connect so much directly with the who you might consider the End customer, although everybody does have an customer just you know, how you define that customer but are they feeling a part of that that that connection do they really understand why you know, and I know we talk about these things but it's it's true, you know, they do they feel parts that they feel value and what they're delivering do they feel enthusiastic or are they just going through the motions and if they're just going through the motions, you know, as you said that person said, you know, well, we delivered our thing and we are successful then and you might want to take a step back and say, you know, are we really as an organization propagating because I think there's an innate human desire. I have it.

I see it. A lot of people is to belong to something bigger in our cells and if people any part of the chain

Don't feel that then we need to we need to do some things that help them feel that and you know, none of those things. There's no but switch, you know, as you got a you got to engage people and and you know, and and help them understand and help them feel that that belonging to the the bigger thing and you know, the thing that they're doing the value that it's bringing to the end mission and then that's an important thing and you're saying so everyone in that involved in that sort of data Logistics change the data people backboard people the data science people the management the analysts all these people start gotta be In line of we're going to focus on value delivery and and we're going to be part of that meaningful activity to make customer successful and improve the company. Absolutely and you know, that's it's easy for me to serve here and this webinar and and say those things but none of that stuff is easy, but that is in my humble opinion. Those are the things. I actually Define the difference between the top.

And and and and maybe some of the other ones if you know, if you people talk about culture and all these things. culture like much like the you know, it's um Quality is not you know, hope is not a strategy culture is not a good culture and and that that is not it's not an accident, you know companies that do that or teens that do that, you know often they do it because they they put effort into it.

Yeah, and well, thank you. I think we should finish up I got I just want to thank you James for what you did today and it's really just insightful and like I think I you know occur concur with what you say and I think this idea of being a leader and running a good team transcend State and analytics right? Like I'm I've been a fan of I can sometimes tell when I go into a restaurant that the restaurant is well managed, it's just something about having a happy team that's producing good food and the bathrooms clean and the waitress comes back at the right time and it's just it's just a pleasure in life to be part of an organization that is high functioning well-run Purpose Driven delivers value to the customers and I think You know these sort of principles that you talked about are are really great and useful definitely useful for data analytic organizations and and just to conclude. Thank you so much James, and I think we ended up answering the the question that we got and that's it. So what we'll do

00:55:00

is we'll post this you'll look at an email with the recording in the slides. But again, thank you for listening in James. Thank you so much for participating today. All right. Thank you.