Jessica Lachs: recommendation

Transcript context

…That's an awesome story, great memory to come up with that one. So this is a really good example of a way to carve out time for the data team to think long-term, think look for opportunities, find big ideas. So the hackathon is one idea. Imagine many data people are struggling often to push back on asks that are just like, "h, we need to know. We just need this one thing. Here's a question, just answer this one question part." Do you have any advice to data to get better at pushing back? Sounds like a bit of cultural like, "We have time, we need to work on these bigger things." But just any advice for data leaders or data ICs to find time for these sorts of things? Yeah, saying no to someone is never fun. I think as a self-proclaimed people-pleaser, you don't want to say no, especially when it's something you can do and you know that you can very easily with maybe an hour's work, make someone happy. I think it's really important to establish a culture and for leadership to really establish the rules of working and that operating model so that some of the junior folks aren't forced to always have to say no. And I think one of the ways we do that is through our goaling. So because our goals are the same as our business partners, we're able to pretty easily say, "Hey, we've got a limited amount of time. These are our goals. What are the most important things that we are going to work on this week or this month in order for both of us to hit our goals?" And so when something comes up to be able to say, "Hey, this data poll that you want me to do, is this more important than these other three things that I was going to be working on? Yes or no?" And I think sometimes people don't necessarily realize the trade-offs, and when you make them apparent and you put them front and center, they realize that, "Oh, actually, you know what? That asset's not important. That can wait." So I think that that's definitely something I would recommend, which is always share the trade-offs. Don't suffer in silence with, "How am I going to do all four of these things?" Bring it up and say, "Hey, this is what I was planning to do. If you want me to do this extra new thing, then one of these other things is going to have to drop. I personally don't think that your ask is more important than these three things, but maybe there's new information, maybe there's context I don't have, so let's talk about it." Rather than just being like, "No, I won't do that." That's not a great approach either. I think having the conversation and constantly reevaluating your prioritization to make sure you're working on the most important things or your team is working on the most important things is really good hygiene to have with your business partner. So some teams do that through a weekly standup like, "Here's what we're going to do this week. Do we like this prioritization? Do we not?" Some folks do it less formally than that. I think you got to figure out what works for you. But to the earlier point, it's a conversation with your engineering partner, your product partner, your ops partner, you're all on the same team, you're all trying to achieve the same goals and you're all incentivized to have your analytics team working on the most impactful things. This advice is great for any role basically. And if I were to summarize it to a couple words, it's just prioritize and communicate what your priorities are and then align on the trade-offs of shifting your priorities.…

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