Summary: The Rise of the Connector Roles in Data Science
For all of the current focus on using data, analytics, and AI to improve organizational decisions and operations, too many data science projects fail. Even for those that succeed, progress is often slow and expensive.
— Davenport and Redmen, The Rise of Connector Roles in Data Science
On November 27, 2023, Thomas Davenport and Thomas Redman published “The Rise of Connector Roles in Data Science” in the MIT Sloan Management Review, stating that “(Analytics Connectors) can bridge the organizational gaps that often thwart success with data science projects.”
This posting contains highlights from that article and insights on the importance of Analytics Connectors:
- Organizational gaps between teams are wreaking havoc with the ability to develop, apply, and scale data science projects.
- A new type of role (Analytics Connectors) is needed to bridge these gaps.
- There is no minimizing these issues — they are deep, structural, and often political and may well demand additional management strategies.
- The obvious way to close organizational gaps is to fill them with people. We generically call people in these roles “connectors”.
Davenport and Redman identify related issues between pure business and technical roles within an organization, also condemning many data, analytics and AI projects to failure. Analytics Connector roles within an organization can mitigate the additional related issues:
- Line Managers and data scientists often don’t understand each other. This makes it particularly difficult for both parties to agree on the problem to be solved and for data scientists to obtain and understand the nuance needed in data.
- Implementing a model requires extensive changes within the business: redesigning processes, training on how models work, and upskilling to run them.
- The two sides might not see eye to eye on IT infrastructure decisions, such as those related to technical debt.
According to Davenport and Redman, Analytics Connectors are often essential in the following ways:
- Framing the problem to be solved with data science: For example, executives might have heard some of the hype surrounding AI but lack a deep enough understanding of what problems it can help solve, or the technology’s potential across the organization.
- Translating between business and technical people — an age-old gap that has yet to be closed.
- Dealing with data quality issues.
- Communicating requirements, progress, and issues within the team — in other words, tying the many pieces of a data science project together and being the connector between diverse teams.
- Keeping track of progress toward the overall goal of deployment and organizational change when nobody else sees the big picture.
Analytics Connectors help senior business leaders understand both the potential and challenges of data science, help data science leaders understand the top problems facing the business, and establish a portfolio of data science projects that aligns with business needs.
— Davenport and Redmen, The Rise of Connector Roles in Data Science
How Can Our Company Help?
Our company, Analytics Connector, LLC, provides training and coaching services to enable Analytics Connectors:
- For self-service learners, our Analytics Connector Academy provides a self-service training approach with content to assist in your development as an Analytic Connector within your organization.
- For a more custom approach, our Analytics Connector Coaches can provide a more individualized approach to develop the skills needed for Analytics Connectors. Coaches help to personalize and customize coaching and training for one-on-one, group-based, and corporate training programs for skills development.
Who Can Benefit from Our Training and Coaching?
All of our coaching and training is designed to improve your ability to visualize, interpret, translate, communicate and implement analytical information. Analytics Connector Coaches and the Analytics Connector Academy provide coaching and training to Analytics Connectors as well as Analytics Professionals, Line Managers and Business Executives.