2 Exercise: Project Progress - Video Tutorials & Practice Problems

<v ->Now it's time for me to stop talking</v> and for you to start working. We're gonna send you back to work on your project of the analytics problem of your choice. And so we're gonna start with that bottom part of that strategy that we showed you, which is to describe where you are. So what does your before picture look like? Where are you now? And obviously we want you to describe that using analytics. So what kinds of KPIs or metrics are in place today and are they used to make decisions or maybe not? And what obstacles do you face in assessing where you are? Is it hard to even assess? Are there things you have to do, things you have to get out of your way, problems you have to solve before you can even describe where you are. If so, you need to figure out how to tackle those in your plan. And try and develop some motivation here. How does it hurt your organization that you have this problem and what will happen if it doesn't get solved? This is really what your before picture looks like. Now, again, we want you to use numbers when you assess. So when you describe where you are, you should try to do it in terms of a key performance indicator. You want the analytics to express the purpose of your plan. And so you need to start by having the analytics describe where you are. So what are you trying to do? Are you trying to improve your company's performance for an existing KPI? If so, you need to be very specific. So what are the things that you're trying to do? That's what the KPIs are really for. So don't just identify what the KPI is, but as you're starting to think and envision the future, you want to be specific about what your goal is for that KPI, a specific numeric goal, best with a timeframe because that's the next step we're gonna have you take is what's your after picture? What does it look like after you succeed? What does success look like once you've solved this problem? What will be the effect on your KPIs and your metrics when you succeed? And what are the actions that you'll take to get there? What are the benefits to your organization when you get there? And what other metrics do you need besides the KPIs? Are there other metrics you have to look at? They might not be KPIs because maybe business leaders wouldn't really understand the significance of them, but they could be diagnostic. They could help you know whether something's going wrong. And so if something's going wrong, you want to track task completions. You also want to track other metrics that tell you that maybe are kind of an early warning system. So for example, if you're doing this for an email campaign, maybe the size of your email list growing would be an interesting metric. Maybe the number of emails you send out would be a good metric. Maybe the open rate. They're not your KPIs, but they're metrics that might help tell you if something might be going wrong that might threaten the goal for your KPIs. You also want to have clarity for yourself that the actions you're taking are actually the cause of the improvement in your KPIs. So if you reach your goal, it's what you did that actually made that happen. So make sure that you're not using spurious correlations, make sure that everybody can really see how the causality is really there. It might not be obvious. And so taking the time to think through now how you're going to prove that will save you a lot of arguing later. Now remember, as you're doing this, keep your decision-maker in mind. Remember, you're trying to communicate a story with numbers. So, because you're communicating, remember who you're communicating to. If you keep your audience in mind, you're gonna make your argument much more persuasive. So let's summarize what we're doing on your project in this set of exercises. So you're gonna continue working on your plan and you're gonna start by assessing your situation, describing where you are today. Tell us what your before picture is. Then we want you to choose at least one, maybe more, KPIs that will demonstrate your success after you do what you're planning to do. And that's the next thing you're gonna do is to describe your future state. What's your vision? What will the after picture look like when you've completed this plan and the problem is solved? And we want you to really think deeply about what will prove causation, not merely correlation from actions to your KPIs. So I hope you'll be able to tackle these things and then we'll see you back here.