A blog about data, tools, and operating collaborative high performance cultures.
Sharing a rich real-world example of a metric tree
Investigating a few drawbacks to Kimball's modeling approach
A look at the lasting power of Kimball's dimensional modeling approach
A quick examination of "metrics layers" two years in - after the early buzz
How metric trees help translate across data and business domains
Exploring the power of metric equations with a simple example
Examining the key differences between reporting-first vs analytics-first cultures and its ramifications
Taking chatGPT for a quick spin to see if it can role play as a data analyst!
A post about how we build narratives from data.
This post outlines key evolutionary steps for a strong analytics practice. Machine learning is not always the pinnacle state for a data-centric culture - there is a lot of ROI in nuts and bolts analytics work.
Learning and Unlearning - startup phase transitions are hard, surprisingly common and rarely discussed in public. But this post dives in.
A succinct listicle - just three key principles to operating a modern organization
Leverage metric trees to organize your metrics - and avoid the "too many/too few" debate.
Let's re-think self-service as dashboards are just basic service.
Examining the different types of transformations from source to end consumption
Expressing some skepticism this is a fundamental change in the data domain
Fewer dashboards, more metric analytics please!
Analysts are our unsung heroes, and why we need to empower them
How do we actually produce actionable insights?
Examining the ascendance of product metrics and arguing for a course-correction for data and tech teams.
Exploring the recent buzz around "data apps" and its potential
A short post about data being elevated to a first class citizen but still lacking the cultural reach.
Some reflections on how crazy recent the cloud data platforms still are, the first wave of tooling on top, and what's needed next.
Some thoughts on data, ROI from investing in data teams and assets, scrutiny of data teams etc.
The engineering forces taking over the data domain and the good and the bad of it all.
Sharing a common "mixshift" analysis pattern for a key metric of interest
Examining how metric trees model relationships between inputs and outputs
How metric trees enable root causing, save time and generate $$$
A proper introduction to metric trees with a real world example
Using metric trees and segments can level up business reviews
Examining the tension between centrally governed data and flexibility for consumers
Categorizing the three types of analysis all orgs need to execute
Thoughts on wny dashboards are the go-to mechanism for organizations vs self-service workflows
A post that talks about the power of segmentation, and how a business semantic graph helps collaboration between data and business teams.
A followup post diving deeper into the business semantic graph example and showcasing informational and operational use cases.
Inspired by the discussion on data contracts, we take a look at standardizing outputs for evolving use cases like A/B experiments, and segment contribution and impact analysis.
We take a look at an example representation of business semantics visualized via a graph, and explore its powerful implications.
It's time we embraced stronger modeling in the modern data stack. This post showcases the power of applications we can build on business semantics with a simple example.
How tools evolve and in particular, how the "dashboard"/"report" in the data domain is woefully inadequate for modern data-centric teams.
This article covers why this feeling exists, why it's growing among data-savvy operators, and what's the way forward. tl;dr: sql isn't the core problem or the solution.