Client’s Problem: “We have a strategic growth initiative (SGI) aimed at transforming the company from being simply data-driven to being analytics-driven. However, we do not have the leadership experience and personnel (we think) internally to extend our reporting unit into an advanced analytics (AA) group. The large consulting firms we use for most other projects are trying to sell us the Moon and stars, with a price tag that fits. To make things more complex, we would like some in-flight projects to evolve with the AA SGI and include machine learning ideas our existing team has proposed.”

What an imposing problem! A funded advanced analytics effort. We loved this engagement involving equal parts projects, processes, and people. At a high level, the Client’s reporting unit needed a strategic roadmap that aligned them with the advanced analytics initiative. We helped craft that road map and put it into action.

The first step was learning and enunciating the Client’s vision and mission regarding analytics, which involved interviewing the C-level executive team and various department heads with vested interests in analytics. Further interviews with the people in the reporting unit yielded a list of core values they expected in themselves, their mission, and their leaders.

We conducted a thorough self-audit of the existing teams (effort-value of existing projects, a group S.W.O.T., a company P.E.S.T., readiness, competitive advantages). With these inputs in hand, they were synthesized into strategic focuses for the new AA group. Alongside the leaders of the reporting unit, we crafted near- and long-term objectives for the new group to pursue. We then sliced each near-term objective into goals with defined metrics/KPIs and estimated timelines.

A significant part of the road map was people and their development. The short-term solution was embedding Primordial teams to do project work while also assisting in hiring experienced people to lead the new AA group. Another major hurdle was the deployment of new technologies and development tools (e.g., AWS, Docker, GitHub, Airflow, Presto) to create efficiencies for the new group. The Primordial teams owned the roll-out and training on these systems for seamless handover.