When the boss creates his own dashboards
Staying calm in the self-service analytics era when people push your buttons.
We all know the feeling when you’re in that weekly meeting; you know the ones that are ‘fixed’ in the schedule and seem to last for hours?
Often enough, someone proudly opens up their laptop and pulls out their ‘own’ self-made version of a report, and starts quoting numbers. The report is probably taking data from the abyss of outdated tables still lingering in the self-service analytics platform. Tables which the data team should have cleaned up weeks if not months ago. The meeting ends up in the usual discussion where someone pulls out the ‘official numbers’ and the yep there you have it, the endless debate starts.
The ripple effect of this is more than just the time wasted debating which numbers are right but also leads to a dip in trust in the official dashboards, the numbers in which the data team worked so hard in putting together.
I know, it often feels like a chore and an unproductive task to do, but ensuring those old data tables and sources are archived so that no one can use them anymore, is time worth spending. De-prioritising these kinds of tasks often lead to unproductive consequences. Defending ‘official’ numbers becomes the norm and self-appointed data experts throughout the organisation wreak havoc by quoting their own versions, hence confidence in the data team is compromised.
Spare yourself the pain of the weekly meeting debates on incoherent numbers and get back to debating on more productive issues by keeping the (data) house clean.
Archive old tables and reports, and when someone screams about it, first take a breather and then, depending on the level of screaming, put it back and make a note to upgrade it on a defined date (not just later), then direct the screamer to the official dashboard/report 😊.
Here are some tips👇
Read more about my personal experiences managing data teams in my other article — When everyone becomes the data expert.
