Journey from Idea to Insight
Rethinking how organizations can become data-driven through a simple KPI
We are witnessing an era marked by the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI). The advent of ChatGPT and Generative AI (GenAI) ignited this trend, revealing the potential of AI and attracting substantial venture capital investments. Companies are now integrating AI into their solutions, enhancing user experience and efficiency.
Surprisingly, over 77% of companies are either using or exploring the use of AI. This has triggered a talent hunt among organizations looking to incorporate GenAI into their solutions. For an AI strategy to be successful, it's crucial for an organization to have a robust data strategy.
Time-to-Insight
How can we emphasize data in an organization?
Time-to-Insight refers to the period between the inception of an idea and the delivery of related insights.
An idea could be a simple question like, "What is the performance of our marketing campaign?" or "What are our sales to date?" or even "What is my customer's main concern?".
Insight may come in the form of a report, dashboard, or model that answers the question. Answering these questions requires a combination of data acquisition, modeling for structured data interpretation, and an analytical output like a dashboard to summarize the results.
The challenge lies in the amount of work and effort needed to deliver these insights. It involves engineering, infrastructure, and analysts. From my experience, this process typically takes several months. Furthermore, the answers to initial questions will lead to more questions, further prolonging the insight delivery process.
KPI-Driven Design
I've focused on Time-to-Insight as the KPI when designing teams and setting objectives.
KPIs are critical in team and organizational design due to the clarity they provide of the expected outcome. By focusing on the outcome, teams can concentrate on the how and who required to achieve Time-to-Insight.
If it takes six months for your organization to deliver insights, that business opportunity is long gone. It’s no wonder why most organizations are dissatisfied with their data teams! Funding to data teams get cut, data teams struggle to support the needs of the business, and the Time-to-Insight grows.
This vicious cycle can be changed. In the coming weeks, I will share how we addressed this challenge within our organization.
We've significantly reduced our Time-to-Insight from six months to just two days.
This transformation didn't require several years or a large team of engineers, but was achieved within a year with just four full-time employees.
I have witnessed how Time-to-Insight can transform organizations into data-driven entities. When our organization can answer questions within days, it prompts even more inquiries that our team can promptly address. This leads to an influx of insights, sparking more ideas. It's a rewarding experience where users no longer compete for priority, instead focusing on how their ideas can uncover new opportunities.