Becoming Data Driven, From First Principles

Shoutout to Ross Nazarenko who initially shared this on the databeats slack.

This seems like an incredibly useful way to analyse processes that I've not come across before. I can see this being hugely useful in CRM marketing where you want to keep a general overview on top line metrics (opens, clicks, etc) while being able to quickly identify outliers and trend changes.

Lots of opportunities to use this in the wider RevOps world too from a process monitoring and analysis perspective.

There are some proper truth bombs in the post too that I'm sure we've all experienced in one way or another.

Data is important to the competent operator because data gives you such knowledge. In simple terms, the purpose of data is to give you a causal model of your business in your head. If reality changes, the figures in your business should show it. At which point you get to update your knowledge.

Most people do not use data like this. Sure, they collect numbers and look at charts. They often set KPIs based on these figures. But mostly they run their businesses as if it were a black box. They know that some amount of spending and process and labour will combine to serve customers, in order to spit out profit the other end. They’re not exactly sure of the relationships but they know that it all works, somewhat. If they don’t hit their targets, they make up some spiel about how “if you hit 100% of your OKRs you’re not being ambitious enough” (or they just, you know, doctor the numbers). They’re never entirely sure how it all fits together.