Thoughtful Analytics: An introduction to the framework

Getting analytics right is imperative to build a successful product and company. Businesses are going out of their way to set up effective data teams that can help guide growth. However, it’s still a relatively new field and therefore, there aren’t many playbooks to follow for analysts at different stages of the product’s maturity. With that in mind, I consolidated my own learnings, from my many years in this field, into the Thoughtful Analytics framework.

The steps in the framework have been tried and tested by me across Fortune 500 companies like Salesforce, as well as smaller start-ups like Fitbit and Komodo. Over the years, I’ve worked in analytics focused on improving products, amplifying the voice of the customer, deriving insights from sales / marketing data, and optimizing algorithms that power a SaaS business. My trusty framework has served me well through all of those challenges! I am sharing it with the hope that it helps other analysts to stay anchored on providing impactful insights that drive business and product success.

The framework is made up of two parts:

• The 3 foundational values that guide the process
• The 4 pillars of action that result in strong impact

The 3 foundational values

Values guide our actions, and how we prioritize our impact.

When we deal with data, we become the purveyors of truth and accountability. Our results and solutions should inspire trust in our craft, and our commitment to highlight the most critical truths in the data.

Analytics has attracted people from very diverse backgrounds, and I feel it has greatly benefited from that diversity. We don’t just get an engineer’s inclination to build, a physicist’s focus on logic, a psychology major’s interest in human behavior, or a marketer’s knack for experimentation — we get all of it. With that wonderful mesh of diverse perspectives, it makes sense to establish a set to universally applicable foundational values, to hold ourselves accountable to a consistent and higher standard.

The three values are to:

• Empathize
• Think Ahead
• Be Impactful

Empathy is the one of the most desirable qualities in a good data analyst. Our ability to empathize with our customers, our product users and our stakeholders, is what allows us to create relevant hypotheses, and strategize for impactful outcomes. Without developing our empathy, it becomes easier for us to ignore alternate paths that might provide a better solution that fully fits our use case. With empathy, we have more motivation to search for the innovative solutions that truly satisfy the requirements, and think creatively about solving our challenges.

Thinking ahead is the best plan for sustainable long-term impact. Analysts typically face great pressure to solve for the now. It is up to us to push back and advocate for the future. Scaling a solution is a problem that is best solved today, when there are architectural decisions that can be made right now that set us up for success tomorrow. Whether it’s the larger business question we are trying to solve, or the code we write, spending the time upfront in planning and documenting goes a long way in reducing future pain of having to re-do efforts in light of new nuances.

Being impactful requires us to ruthlessly prioritize solving for important outcomes, and not getting lost in good-to-have analyses. An analyst is ultimately measured by the decisions we influence, and how we truly help solve important problems using data. When we work to build trust in us and our work, we are getting closer to achieving that objective. Our insights and recommendations have the potential to change the trajectory of a business — and they may not necessarily be where the business thought it would go. This means our work can have important consequences, and thus we should treat our analysis with the respect and attention it deserves. It requires us to pay attention to the data quality issues, be mindful of stakeholder goals as we make recommendations, and be focused on the bigger picture of what we’re trying to optimize.

As analysts, we are the bearers of business truth. Our insights guide business on what to build, how to prioritize the roadmap, and which customer segment to pay more attention to. The difference between a thriving business and a floundering one is how many of these decisions were well thought out. When we as analysts think deeply about the consequences and lead with empathy, think ahead and focus on impact, we ensure success.

4 Pillars of action for Thoughtful Analytics

Above the foundation of the three values, we can build the pillars of actions we need to take as thoughtful analysts. Each of these pillars translates into tangible steps that one can take to build trustworthy and accurate analyses.

The 4 pillars are:

• Know the Product
• Know the Data
• Know your Stakeholders
• Know what’s Important

I will provide more details and tangible examples on each of these pillars, in subsequent articles (one for each). Meanwhile, in short:

• Product — We can’t effectively analyze something we don’t understand
• Data — Any analysis can only be as good as the underlying data
• Stakeholders — Strong people-partnerships can help clarify the goals of the analyses
• What’s important — Don’t let red herrings in data explorations distract you

These four pillars stay constant no matter what type of analytics you are doing. Regardless of the business function (product, sales, marketing, voice of customer etc.), the process to drive success is the same. The four pillars are anchored in the foundational guiding values, and are thus optimized for achieving impactful outcomes.

Watch this space for a deeper dive into each of the four pillars!

I respond to comments on my post here or on Twitter (@ShailviW). Feel free to share your thoughts so far! You can view my previously published content here: http://www.shailvi.com/analytics-knowledge.html

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