Metadata
- Author: Sven Balnojan
- Full Title:: Why Most Data Teams Are Expensive Consulting Shops — And How to Fix It
- Category:: 🗞️Articles
- Document Tags:: Data Team Vision and Mission,
- URL:: https://archive.ph/ZgW1d
- Read date:: 2025-07-18
Highlights
We processed tickets, delivered dashboards, and measured success by delivery speed. With 500 employees and ~100 weekly BI users, we were the model of a modern data team. Our stakeholder satisfaction hit 95%+. Average ticket resolution: 3.2 days. (View Highlight)
The problem isn’t that most data teams lack technical skills. This Reddit thread makes it painfully clear that even data professionals recognize their teams are fundamentally dysfunctional. Teams build beautiful, unused models. Executives ignore recommendations with practiced indifference. Industry analysis confirms that 73% of data science projects never reach production. (View Highlight)
Most data teams run a service-desk model that optimises for ticket velocity and stakeholder happiness — not for business impact. (View Highlight)
Then Unite underwent a triple transformation that shattered our comfortable assumptions: complete business model pivot, migration to microservices, and move to cloud. Suddenly, those three conditions vanished like foundational support beams pulled from under our feet. (View Highlight)
Dysfunction 3: Insulation from consequences Most data teams report to CTOs or Chief Data Officers, not business leaders whose decisions they’re supposed to influence. (View Highlight)
Instead of asking stakeholders what they wanted, I was going to propose what the company needed. Instead of collecting wishlists, I spent weeks understanding the critical decisions facing Unite’s leadership during our transformation. (View Highlight)
The complete transformation process took three years and required fundamental changes in how we operated. We developed a dual communication strategy that acknowledged the reality of internal customers: informal updates with all users who needed tactical information, but strategic planning only with actual decision-makers who could implement our recommendations. (View Highlight)