How to build a data-driven mindset?

A mindset is a result of what you repeatedly do.

A data-driven mindset means that you bring data to decision making, repeatedly.

Bringing data to decisions implies a lot of things.

• It could mean developing engaging dashboards.
• Developing datasets to make it easy for other Analysts to run deep-dives.
• It means constantly working with business partners to identify questions that can be answered with data and analytics.

When a data-driven mindset exists its recognition is obvious. And to arrive at this mindset, you really have to ask a lot of Why questions. This is usually what the business stakeholders are asking their Analytics colleagues.

I often hear of Analytics feeling discouraged by repeated ad-hoc work coming their way.

While there is a need for more discipline in streamlining the process of doing ad-hoc work, it is a competitive advantage that  Data teams provide to the business when they dig into these business questions and do deep-dives.

Every deep-dive is an opportunity to develop a dashboard. Every dashboard is an opportunity to create a metric. Every metric is an opportunity to take a more informed decision.

The discussion shared above was part of many Q&A sessions Harsh Singhal conducted with Data teams at various companies and colleges.