How do you refine your strategy with data? Data is a powerful tool to help you make better decisions, improve your performance, and achieve your goals. But data alone is not enough. You need to use it wisely and creatively to inform and enhance your strategy. In this article, you will learn how to refine your strategy with data in six steps.
Before you collect and analyze any data, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to accomplish and why. Your objectives should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). They should also align with your vision, mission, and values. By defining your objectives, you will have a direction and a purpose for your data-driven strategy.
Having SMART objectives is key because if you don't know where you want to go, the best navigation tools will no use (imagine using google maps without knowing the destination). That said, it's also important to remember you want the data to drive your strategy (& not the other way round!). Keep the flexibility to pivot based on what you find from analyzing the data.
Once you have your objectives, you need to find out where you can get the data that will help you measure and achieve them. There are many possible data sources, such as internal records, customer feedback, market research, industry reports, social media, and web analytics. You need to evaluate the quality, reliability, and relevance of each data source and select the ones that best suit your needs.
Try building in perspectives from diverse set of stakeholders i.e customers, internal stakeholders at different levels (from customer facing to decision makers)
The next step is to collect and organize your data in a way that makes it easy to access, understand, and use. You may need to use different tools and methods to gather and store your data, such as surveys, interviews, databases, spreadsheets, or dashboards. You should also ensure that your data is accurate, complete, and consistent, and that you follow ethical and legal standards for data protection and privacy.
Focus on collecting both qualitative and quantitative data to get a complete picture of what you're looking to evaluate and fully understand the story behind the stats
Now that you have your data, you need to make sense of it and find out what it tells you about your situation, challenges, opportunities, and progress. You can use various techniques and tools to analyze and interpret your data, such as descriptive statistics, inferential statistics, data visualization, or machine learning. You should also look for patterns, trends, correlations, outliers, and anomalies in your data and try to explain them.
Based on your data analysis and interpretation, you need to evaluate how well your strategy is working and what you can do to improve it. You may need to modify or update your objectives, actions, resources, or timelines to better align with your data insights. You may also need to test and experiment with different options and scenarios to find the optimal solution for your situation.
The final step is to communicate and implement your refined strategy with data. You need to share your findings, recommendations, and plans with your stakeholders, such as your team, managers, customers, or partners. You should also use data to support your arguments, persuade your audience, and demonstrate your value. You should also monitor and measure the results of your strategy and use feedback and new data to further refine it.