Metadata
- Author: Abhi Sivasailam
- Full Title:: OS Layer Not Application Layer - How Data Teams Actually Drive Value
- Category:: 🗞️Articles
- URL:: https://roundup.getdbt.com/p/os-layer-not-application-layer-how
- Finished date:: 2023-04-17
Highlights
A good place to start is with why the question of ROI is so hard to answer. The question is difficult because the question is wrong. ROI questions make sense in the context of hard deliverables, but the true value of data teams isn’t in their deliverables, it’s in something more abstract: it’s in helping their companies get value out of their data. But that begs the question: what does it mean to get value out of data? What value is there in data to be extracted in the first place? For most companies, most of the value of data is simply in answering 4 questions:
- What is happening in our business?
- Why is it happening?
- What’s going to happen next?
- What should we do about it? That’s it. (View Highlight)
In techno-speak, the best data teams don’t seem themselves as contributing to the application layer; instead, they know that they’re contributing to the operating system layer. Playing the value measurement game then is something of a category error – it’s trying to measure contributions to the operating system as if they were applications. (View Highlight)
the very best way to do that is by targeting the two most important such processes – what I call The Big Two – Business Reviews and Planning. The Big Two are all that matter. Business Reviews are how a company monitors, introspects and recalibrates. Planning Cycles are how a company decides how to invest its resources in and for the future. Taken together, these two processes shape most of how the company works and what it produces. As such, they are incredibly high-leverage. (View Highlight)