We don't like to admit it, but sometimes we hit a bit of rut - whittling down the endless backlog of analytics projects - and find ourselves and our teams missing that little "spark".
I have been there myself... and have had success in breaking out of the rut by trying something a bit different.
Here are a three suggestions - that will take a week or two each to complete - to help re-energize you and and your team.
As an added bonus, you will also likely unlock some insights and inspiration for maximizing the value of your analytics efforts.
1) Take a look at all of the reports/dashboards that were generated over the last 6 months. Identify the bottom 25% based on usage/views.
Investigate why they are not being used as much as expected to identify root causes. Invariably, this will uncover some issues with either the data, the user experience, or the process for understanding the true business need of the report/dashboard.
Share the findings, along with suggested next steps, with appropriate parties. This is also a great way to jumpstart the long-overdue effort to get rid of the "dead wood" dashboards and introduce a mindset of dashboard re-use (vs re-invent).
2) Poll the analysts to identify one or two proactive analytics initiatives.
These should not be existing requests from stakeholders, but rather something that the people who are digging deep into the data may have noticed or suspected as being an issue.
Do some analysis (not a deep-dive just yet) and share initial findings with the stakeholder(s). Taking the initiative will be well-received, will build more cred for the analytics team, and will showcase your ability to be consultative and not simply a "service provider"
3) Conduct an internal "Net Promoter Survey" (NPS) for analytics. Include stakeholders, executives, data engineers, data science, analysts... the entire analytics "community".
Of course, this can be a bit risky as you will need to be prepared for some "opportunities" to be uncovered.
However, with the mindset that sometimes we need to shake things up a little bit to get out of the "rut", this should be looked upon as a way to re-ignite the spark.
My suggestion is to make it simple and open-ended. Ask three questions:
How satisfied are you with the analytics capabilities and insights that are generated? Use an NPS scale of 1 to 10.
What two things about the analytics are you most satisfied with? (Required response)
What two things about the analytics are you least satisfied with? (Required response)
Conduct the survey using whatever approach makes most sense - though leveraging a survey tool is often the easiest. Either way, let people know it is coming so as to not put them on the spot to answer the questions and to provide time for well-thought out responses.
Once you get the results back, my suggestion is to not focus on the "NPS" score - which should simply be considered a baseline with no assessment of what is good or bad.
The focus should instead be on the areas of most and least satisfaction.
Compile the results and insights for your own internal consumption. Identify the success stories and a take on a couple of "quick wins".
Implement the quick wins and provide a high-level readout (and share the already-completed quick wins) to the analytics community to show you are indeed listening and being responsive.
Identify any larger initiatives and provide a summary to leadership as you are now armed with "the voice of the analytics community" to provide justification for additional funding for projects, technology, or resources.
Good luck and share your experiences!
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