Building Analytics Teams: Harnessing Analytics and Artificial Intelligence for Business Improvement

I have been doing analytics directly for 3 years. When I saw a post from a senior pro I follow saying I wish I had this book 10 years ago, I bought this book. Add to that John has 30+ years in the biz, why wouldn't I want to kick start my knowledge and cut years off my learning curve? I cracked this book and have been devouring it; I'm not generally an avid reader but I can't put this book down.The tips herein aren't how to make a million dollars doing analytics; they're lots of subtle tweaks to avoid potholes and make those small improvements that will get your projects completed successfully and in less time. The running joke in the analytics and data science community is the crazy % of projects that don't see the light of day. This book will help you be part of the small % that make transformational impacts in your business.As someone with 15+ years in my industry but 3 directly in analytics and being close to the inner workings of IT, I'm learning so much about how to be a successful in the analytics space. Guess what, it's not much different from the business side but there are a definitely key differences dealing with IT and technology developers vs. business people.I am writing all over this book, noting key takeaways. I attached pictures of 2 sections that I like:1. There is so much opportunity to make a positive impact with analytics - show your value to the business and you'll have a never-ending stream of opportunity.2. People who excel in analytics are a little different from your average business person. Embrace that. We look at the world a little differently, question everything and usually have a "weird" idea that may or may not work. That's the value we bring.I can't stress enough how great this book is. I'm stopping here with my effusive praise so I can read the next chapter. Thanks John!

John Thompson’s Building Analytics Teams is the must read book of 2020 for any leader aiming to leverage data and analytics for bigger business impact. John combines his decades of expertise in this space, research, anecdotes from real world customers, and humor to make this an approachable and actionable read.A few of my favorite nuggets of wisdom:Orignal sin - putting advance analytics and AI in the technology department (and why analytics is so very different from other information systems projects)“Organizational change is gated by the amount of change individuals can understand and assimilate.” ... the most successful AI and analytics programs combine people change management in the planning.Bias, ethics, teaching the next generation to love data and analytics and to think critically about data in context

In a field as specialized as analytics, including visual and data science, you'd assume there would be unique demands on a leader or manager of that group, but there hadn't been a text to help with this...until now. As a data scientist who has been flexing my management and leadership skills and am wanting to integrate into my future career goals, this book has helped me to solidify a plan to move forward with these goals. From what to expect in the hiring process to stakeholder involvement and creating internal demand, this book has exactly what I needed to help me gain the confidence to do everything from talk to my current manager about expanding my leadership responsibilities to updating my hopes and dreams for my future career.Having watched John in action while working at Dell, it is neat to see how someone did exactly what they've written. What I thought was a nebulous and impossible-to-recreate process can actually be mapped out to help others in their paths forward. I'm grateful John took the time to share his experience with us and help those of us who want to build analytics teams, and how to be more effective from start to finish.

Unlike most books on the subjects of Advanced Analytics and Artificial Intelligence which tend to entirely rotate toward technical detail, this piece's focus is on the leadership realities and the organizational requirements involved to successfully use data to win new markets, improve products, optimize operations, mitigate risks, accurately predict outcomes, etc. I highly recommend, “Building Analytics Teams: Harnessing analytics and artificial intelligence for business improvement”, to anyone interested in the human, organizational, process, and execution end of creating a high functioning Advanced Analytics and AI Team.There is great value and applicable thought leadership here whether you're just starting your career or are a seasoned hand sitting in a CIO, CDO, or CAO role at a business looking to leverage their data assets.

In this overly hyped field, organizations are rushing to implement technologies that they don't understand and are generally unprepared to adopt. The author set out to help (current and future) leaders in this space navigate the pitfalls, prepare their organizations, and build highly productive and impactful analytics teams. A really excellent book that focuses on the human elements rather than the technical. The book brings together generally good people management practices with insights that are unique to the field of advanced analytics and could only be acquired through extensive experience. A highlight chapter is "Selecting Winning Projects".My key take-away: analytics isn't just a project portfolio or a team of people with a very specific technical skill set. It's a way of approaching, describing, and creatively solving business problems and optimizing processes. Build it out as a core capability to enable your organization's strategy.

I have read this book from the very privileged position of having worked with John and managing an advanced analytics team in a global company. John has this remarkable capacity of understanding how his ideas and thoughts can interact with the human nature in a very effective way. We can find many sources of knowledge explaining concepts and business strategies but the reality is that a considerable part of success comes from unwritten or unspoken rules. It is very hard to find books even alluding to these topics and, even less, explaining them in a structured and understandable way. We can find this brilliantly accomplished in “Building Analytics Teams” with the extra perks of the many real examples that are provided to the readers. Reading this book has been, simultaneously, a memory lane travel and a journey companion as so many of the topics and examples are meaningful to me. One of the best ones is the description of how advanced analytics teams should be managed uniquely and measured by different criteria.Needless to say that I highly recommend it.

I highly recommend this book to anyone working in analytics. It explains very well the challenges and opportunity analytics team face. I was able to relate to my own experiences working as a manager in analytics, It gave me a better understanding of the issues at hand and practical recommendations to avoid, mitigate or conquer them.

This book is not only a technical pleasant adventure, but also human! Aspects as: meeting people, different approaches and environments, inclusion, sharing, the versatile style, highlight the high and transversal experience then professionalism of the author: highly recommended!

John has struck a blow for analytics teams as critically important "know-how" units within the organization, and has show us a pathway for building the team from day 1!