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Data-driven decision-making to change the course of a business, is so internally disruptive it's unlikely to happen in an org-chart culture full of management l

by fizixer 11y ago

Data-driven decision-making to change the course of a business, is so internally disruptive it's unlikely to happen in an org-chart culture full of management layer. Because that's what it is: - It is attempting to question, critique, override, everyday decisions made by the management (including the CEO) based on available data. - It is doing that with maximal knowledge of the whole organization. That means all the records, finances, secrets, what not, have to be divulged to the data-science team. (which in itself is an unsurmountable challenge, i.e., to convince the management to allow full data access; think emails, chat logs, meetings minutes of CEO's, VP's, etc, etc). This will make the management go, "so let me get this straight, I authorize you access to data of the whole organization, and you come up with a conclusion (some of the times at least) that I'm full of it?" I highly doubt any organization would be up for this kind of internal disruption, even if that means more success for the company.

TheLogothete 11y ago
Yeah, I definitely need the CEO's emails with cat pictures for my predictive maintenance models.
martini159 11y ago
Your comment so perfectly summarizes what I've long felt is the deep dark dirty secret of data science (at least at a company thats not Google/Facebook/etc). And it flies in the face of all the "top job" lists which are always littered with data-related jobs. Very few people are interested in making data-driven decisions. They want an employee (subordinate) who will prove that the decision they've made or are planning to make, is correct. Anything else is, as you say, very internally disruptive. Being a data scientist or data analyst at a startup is (for the most part) a completely miserable existence. You are relegated to doing interesting things that are usually discarded. It can make you feel like your job is pointless. In the end, one either makes the decision to be (at best) useless, or (at worst) a puppet. That, or you quit. Thank you so much for your comment - it's refreshing to see I'm not alone in feeling like this.

by fizixer 11y ago

TheLogothete 11y ago

Yeah, I definitely need the CEO's emails with cat pictures for my predictive maintenance models.

martini159 11y ago

Your comment so perfectly summarizes what I've long felt is the deep dark dirty secret of data science (at least at a company thats not Google/Facebook/etc). And it flies in the face of all the "top job" lists which are always littered with data-related jobs. Very few people are interested in making data-driven decisions. They want an employee (subordinate) who will prove that the decision they've made or are planning to make, is correct. Anything else is, as you say, very internally disruptive. Being a data scientist or data analyst at a startup is (for the most part) a completely miserable existence. You are relegated to doing interesting things that are usually discarded. It can make you feel like your job is pointless. In the end, one either makes the decision to be (at best) useless, or (at worst) a puppet. That, or you quit. Thank you so much for your comment - it's refreshing to see I'm not alone in feeling like this.