Organizational leaders have a common pursuit regardless of their business sector: success. They desire to be successful, however, their desire to be successful does not always translate into actual success. Just as organizational leaders share the same desire to be successful, they share the same solution to this desire: analytics. (Croll & Yoskovitz, 2013) Incorporating the use of analytics equips organizational leaders with concrete information to make sound decisions and increase their probability of success. (Hubbard, 2014)
For many organizational leaders, there comes a point where an analytics program is needed. In order to do this, there are many phases that must be navigated with intentional progression in order to build an analytics mindset into the culture. First, organizational leaders must develop a network of advocates. (Ames, 2014) An organization without an analytics mindset is likely to face opposition along the way. Organizational leaders need to connect with a number of individuals who can become champions and promoters of an analytics program. (Ames, 2014) Organizational leaders need to also seek out project partners, those who will be in the trenches getting the real work done. (Ames, 2014) Human resource managers and business partners are often on-the-ground support throughout the process of implementation.
After partnerships and advocates are identified, the analytics program must be equipped with the ability to harness high volumes of data (Ames, 2014). Partners will help identify what data is available, as well as what is important and useful (Ames, 2014). The volume of data available to organizational leaders can be staggering, and there will be no way all of it can be used, so it is important to identify where data is housed, who owns its collection and analysis and how individuals can gain access to it.
Does an analytics program rely on organizational size, or is it more based on sector and objectives?
References
Ames, B. (2014). Case Study: Building a Workforce Analytics Program – Crawl before You Jump. Workforce Solutions Review, 5(2), 14–16.
Croll, A., & Yoskovitz, B. (2013). Lean analytics: use data to build a better startup faster (1st ed). Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly.
Hubbard, D. W. (2014). How to measure anything: finding the value of intangibles in business (Third edition). Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Watson, H. J. (2012). The Necessary Skills for Advanced Analytics. Business Intelligence Journal, 17(4), 4–7.
Field Notes 