A simple way for data analysts to understand clients

Career AdviceWorking Life

If we can see things from each other's perspective, we can build a better bridge between the teams that package data and the clients that use it.

Data is the new oil, and companies are scrambling to get their hands on it. The knowledge economy has created a divide between those who have access to information and those who don't.

Despite the fact that engineers and researchers go through extensive training to create complex data infrastructures and generate vast amounts of data with strict adherence to detailed specifications, these specifications are usually light on explanations and justifications for the data themselves. Ignorance about how their clients use what they produce is detrimental to engineers and data researchers.

On the other hand, without the data that producers create, clients would be at a loss. They would like to see predictions of tomorrow's events in their terminals yesterday. Customer success teams may find themselves in the uncomfortable position of having to tell clients that a request cannot be fulfilled, or warning colleagues about the possibility of a dissatisfied client going to a competitor.

If companies want to keep their clients satisfied, they can't afford to have employees who are ignorant about how the clients use the work they produce. However, you can't simply teach this; any attempt at teaching would just go in one ear and out the other.

Your Data Staff Needs a Purpose

According to Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink, the three elements necessary for motivation for an intellectual task are autonomy, mastery and purpose. Specifications may be useful for reference, but they are ineffective in driving positive results from data workers. It's simple: specs alone can't fulfill our fundamental human need to control our own lives (autonomy), to get better at something that's important to us (mastery), and to do what we do in service of something larger than ourselves (purpose).

To achieve true motivation in staff, businesses need a sense of purpose and mastery from employees. When there is trust between employer and employee, businesses are more likely to support staff on the road to mastery through autonomy.

It is unfortunate that purpose, which is the most important of the three elements, is also the most difficult to understand.

A screwdriver's purpose is straightforward in a manufacturing society--it makes it easy to screws. But in a knowledge economy, the meaning and purpose of things are much less clear. If you ask me, the real-life benefit of collecting and organizing various facts and figures of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) for our clients is ____. Eventually, the best answer they could come up with was: “He works in finance, but neither at a bank nor as a stockbroker … We think.”

We can understand the purpose of our work better by breaking it down into smaller parts.

WHAT IS THE OVERALL PURPOSE OF MY WORK?

We pride ourselves on supplying our clients with data that will help them make better decisions faster and more efficiently.

WHAT KIND OF VALUE IS MY WORK BRINGING TO THE CLIENTS?

Our work provides value to clients through problem solving. Data providers supply data that helps clients make better decisions, as previously mentioned. This has different implications depending on the area in question.

Engineers create data schemata that are easier to ingest, faster API calls, more robust search functions, better error and fraud detection, and so forth.

Developing more comprehensive data coverage, precise and updated taxonomy, and pre-calculated values used in common automation is important for researchers.

In order for customer success teams to be successful, they must appreciate both the pain and pleasure points of the business process, suggesting alternative solutions and workarounds to problems, as well as any other client-facing tasks.

WHAT PROBLEMS DO OUR CLIENTS NEED TO SOLVE?

The solutions to these problems will help the business achieve its goals. When providing financial data, it is important to remember that this data should help make it easier for clients to transfer money between buyers and sellers, borrowers and lenders, and so on.

WHAT ARE THE BUSINESS MISSIONS OF OUR CLIENTS?

The answer varies depending on the client's industry.

The data team's main objective is as follows:

"Your data output should help your client solve problems more easily, incorporating features that make better decisions faster, more efficiently, and more accurately."

What? That statement wasn’t helpful? What do you mean, “It was incomprehensible!”? Haven’t we just painstakingly laid the entire process out, layer by layer?

Of course it wasn’t helpful! As we have stated before, we are not making screwdrivers anymore. The question of purpose is much more complicated today. So, let us move on to the next step: role-play.

Role-Play: Not Just for Nerds Anymore!

Role-playing can help your staff produce data that is better aligned with your clients’ needs. They need to improve data alignment, and the best way to do this is to understand the needs of their clients. By putting themselves in their clients’ shoes, they can gain this understanding.

It is important for staff members to have a basic understanding of the industry they are working in, so that they can accurately represent it during role-play.

ROLE-PLAYING FOR DATA ANALYSTS

• Go through the clients day
• Look into how data is consumed
• Let the data analysts take the role of the clients

1. Go through the clients day

I used to manage a global team of M&A researchers who were hired for their multilingual backgrounds and their interest in finance. On the other hand, investment banks - our clients - were notoriously tight-lipped about the goings-on in their industry to those outside of it.

During the onboarding process, we didn’t start right away with what the new team members would do at the job with lists of instructions and specifications. Instead, I led new joiners in interactive workshops, presentations and even a scripted web drama series, to give them an immersive experience into what investment bankers do on a daily basis.

It is important to remember that when introducing yourself to a potential client, you should not give too much information. Focus on helping your clients solve their human problems, providing the data and tools they need, and delivering tangible outcomes based on success or failure.

2. Look into how data is consumed

Once your data staff has a better understanding of the industry it serves, focus on the parts of the daily process where data is consumed. Show them real-world examples of client outputs that utilize your data. These can be presented in various formats, including pitches, reports, fact sheets, presentations, infographics, and animations. It is essential to demonstrate that your data produces real value for your customers.

The data may be provided through various mechanisms, such as client-side applications and web-based interfaces or API calls. If they lack this knowledge, it is your responsibility to educate them. They must learn how to set up on their computers, establish search parameters, and download and ingest the data produced. Your staff should be able to generate similar data sets used in your pitches, reports, and presentations.

By linking the raw data produced by your staff to meaningful outputs, you can reinforce the notion that the work has a real purpose - even if it seemed obscure at first.

3. Let the data analysts take the role of the clients

By now, your staff should be familiar with a typical day in your clients' operations and how the data your staff produces is consumed. It is time for them to put this knowledge to work. Set up a fictional but credible scenario and design tasks where they have to use the data they produce as if they are clients.

M&A bankers need to obtain advisory mandates from companies in order to be successful — you can think of them as real estate agents working on behalf of their clients to buy and sell properties. Therefore, a large part of their job is to convince potential clients that they would be the best agent for a possible deal. After winning the mandate, their focus turns to persuading potential buyers to make a deal with their client. This is similar to real estate agents coming up with price ranges and salient features for the properties they have on the market.

In an in-house M&A training program that I had prepared, I created a fictional company that had decided to put itself up for sale in an auction. This scenario led to two full role-play exercises, with plenty of guides, references, and resources.

A mandate has been awarded to an investment bank to represent the company. The teams had to use our data to construct a pitch deck and deliver a convincing pitch. The teams were judged on how well the data was used to create convincing and compelling pitches.

The program participants were divided into new teams, each of which worked on behalf of a different company. They needed to use our data to generate reasonable price ranges and corroborate them with other talking points to strike a deal. The teams were rated on how well the data was used to come up with negotiation slide decks rather than whether a deal was struck at the end.

People naturally want to come out victorious, but the goal wasn't to see which bank won the advisory mandate or which deal was better. The objective was to cultivate a deeper appreciation of the tools of the trade: data, engineering, research, and customer success. The most prized outcome was increased understanding and appreciation.

By simulating real world problems, we were able to humanize the data and make it more relatable. It was clear that graduates of the program had become more in-tune with client requirements and more engaged in their jobs.

Get Theatrical

Employees are motivated by autonomy, mastery, and purpose. However, data is virtual by its nature, so it can be hard for employees at data providers to find meaning in their work. It is more difficult for employers to communicate this through traditional training and lectures.

By thoughtfully and deliberately introducing our clients to their industries, what drives profits, how they work day-to-day, and with role-play exercises, our engineers, data professionals, and customer service teams gain crucial human insight into our clients’ ever-evolving needs. This allows us to generate better data and products of greater value to them.