Building insightful dashboards and increasing productivity, with Tableau Training on Tap

Full Interview with Ella Worsdale,?Head of Information at Pennine Care NHS Foundation

Below is a transcript of an interview with Ella as some of her team come towards the end of our #Tableau Training on Tap program (#TToT).

You can also watch the full video by clicking here or below:

(PS?- If you are a?leader?looking for similar results for your team members, then book a?discovery call?with me now to discuss whether we can help.)

[Note that this is an auto-generated transcript…and may not 100% represent the actual spoken word…]

Steve:?[00:00:00] Hi Ella, it's been a while since your team has been on the Tableau Training on Tap course so if it's okay with you, I'd like to ask a few questions about how you see their progress through that. And also some of the reasons about why you actually joined. The course is that okay??

Ella:?[00:00:14] Yeah, that's fine. Great. Thank you.?

Steve:?[00:00:15] Cool. So firstly it'd be good to understand a little bit about where you and your team were before you came on board.??What sort of problems were you facing before you sent your team onto the program??

Ella:?[00:00:27] I think the challenge we had was around, I guess, the limited understanding of some of our analysts around the whole approach to building dashboards and analysis and storytelling. And we were struggling really to support them, to get them where that needs to be.

So they both felt more confident and more capable and they are providing a??more kind of rounded service to our data consumers. We felt kind of a management team and this is no disrespect to the staff because they are fab, I think it's just the way we've organically grown Tableau in the last five years within Pennine [00:01:00] and gotten to the point where we just yeah, getting the dashboards out was very functional and I think sometimes and probably all of us nevermind the people??doing it generally felt that the, it was a very functional process and the dashboard was seen as the end goal rather than why it was asked for in the first place. The fact that it was there to solve a business problem.

And I'm not sure we always considered that. We're always trying to make sure the dashboard was all shiny and had everything in it that you can think of. And it suited everybody. For every need and everything. And then as dashboards have grown and other people are out of the meaning that were dashboards, it just got everything in it with hundreds of charts and hundreds of filtered in and stuff.

So we wanted to??whittle that down. So I think for us, we wanted to make sure that we have analysts that had and the developers had a, not a rounded kind of support. So understanding the business challenges, the requirements, how they had to get the most appropriate in the most appropriate way considering the user experience and making sure it's actually solving the problem that we, it was there to put [00:02:00] in the first place.

Steve:?[00:02:00] In getting to that point of that realization what what things had you tried.?

Ella:?[00:02:07] So we were getting to a point where we weren't totally sure. We were thinking about training and probably about two months before we spotted the Tableau Training on Tap stuff. I started to mentor all the analysts directly on we'd and I'd created a new kind of Tableau professional development framework to look at the levels of kind of ability, but not just, I guess not really just about Tableau also around yes, the Tableau skills, but also storytelling with data analysis skills, how they communicate and how they felt comfortable working with our consumers and presenting information, I think about anything related to their roles. So it was a framework and that had, it's got five levels and also acts as like a bit of a portfolio.

So they can actually get pieces of work and mark it against the framework. So we've tried this in the past. We've um, started off the framework a [00:03:00] few years ago and looking at the Fi Gordon's??Rocky to Rockstar, which is a great model and we've got lots of kinds of experiences and staff could get involved in Makeover Monday and Workout Wednesday but it takes a certain staff to really get involved in the external community activities when there's so much to do internally. And it didn't always feel like it was getting that staff really felt assured that they were developing the skills internally so we wanted something that was more on the job and they could reflect yes, when I did this dashboard or when I did this piece of work yesterday, I can put it on the framework.

So real work-based portfolio that also took them through a framework. So we created that and start to implement that alongside mentoring each of the staff collaboratively and individually, and take them from where they were then to improvements. So I guess before the training, and started to meet them regularly, set certain challenges and start to really get them to engage in the professional framework, which went down really well.

And actually the training that the them went on really fitted well into the framework. Because anything that done because [00:04:00] it's on the job, they could fit it in and they could see again how they could work through it. So I guess we want to start at the journey, but I wasn't, I don't know whether I was the confident that I could massively help because of timescales and because of kind of my capacity and the team's capacity to support each other.

And also we're not necessarily the experts we've grown as well. Lots of training and lots of stuff. And I read or hold the stuff all over the social and I'm always reading blogs and stuff, but I wouldn't say I'm a Zen master by any stretch of the imagination. So actually whilst I could give them a lot, there's still all that kind of external support that could benefit from in terms of growing their skills and their knowledge.

Steve:?[00:04:39] Did you find it useful then that the Tableau Training on Tap program could be pointed at their day-to-day activities anyway, rather than being a completely isolated. Yeah,?

Ella:?[00:04:49] Yeah definitely. I think the benefits of the training is that it wasn't just a two day course that you send people off into the classroom because we do that and that's, they're always really good and they always combat [00:05:00] learning loads, but you don't learn, you don't take away two days worth of knowledge and it just stays in people's heads. You come back to the office, have a few things that have learned and then they can reflect back it now than I have. This is about this training was totally different because it was over a three-month period and they're doing it weekly and they can also, there was learning as they go in. So they could definitely do it on the job and take real life business problems that they were trying to solve and struggling to solve into the training and so it was just working in parallel. They could then attach it to the framework. Everything fits together. And yeah, just the seams just seem to fit the way that we work and the way that the staff work, to be honest.?

Steve:?[00:05:42] And did you then find that useful that as a coaching team, we supplement the work that you were doing and maybe take some time off your shoulders so you can focus on the things that you needed to do as well.

Ella:?[00:05:52] Yeah, definitely. I know that The team they're always reaching out for support. There's only so much, there's only so many hours in a day and there's only so [00:06:00] much you can Google. So Google is great for Tableau and there's loads of blogs out there, but actually in terms of the efficiency of doing that, and then actually getting the products, actually a built or refined or that just, it just ended up taking longer, but actually having someone on tap that they could take problems to do even during the week. You can't underestimate that. So yeah, it took a little bit of pressure off as we've also learned from them. Um, yeah, definitely benefited larger than just the people on the course.

Steve:?[00:06:28] Cool. Cool. And I don't really want to put it into the context of being a parent, but it is sometimes difficult to teach your own children. Isn't it? Because they're only listening to you so much and having that third party external is, has been useful. I was taking my daughter yesterday to learn how to ride a bike.

And there's no way I was teaching her. But I was able to teach her friend instead and it's just, it's just weird. Isn't it? Cause the other parent couldn't teach her and I couldn't teach mine, but we just swapped over and it made it a lot easier because they're hearing it from somebody else.

Ella:?[00:06:58] Yeah, exactly. And [00:07:00] backing up some of the theories. and bringing an expertise that we've We're not aware of where we're insular with. It's a team within a team and we're trying to teach each other, but I could have been teaching those bad habits, which so then we'll get the same bad habits that maybe we didn't even know, but, and especially that kind of external support and guidance and an ideas and encouragement as well, that kind of week I wasn't, when I was, I wouldn't have been able to.

Many of us in the senior team be able to provide that level of support or that much time, because we just haven't got the time and that's where we call them stock. And then feel really bad that we can't provide that support. And then things don't move forward and it's just a cycle. And so they just just really supplemented that.

Steve:?[00:07:40] Cool. Cool. So bottom line is, would you recommend us to other people and if so, what sort of organizations would you recommend us to??

Ella:?[00:07:49] Yes, of course. I think the team would feedback from them has been really positive. I've seen we did a bit of an assessment at the beginning when I first started mentoring just before Christmas did a kind of confidence [00:08:00] assessment on different elements of the kind of framework and inline with kind of the stuff that you've done on the course. And everyone who's been on the course, their confidence has shifted and they feel more competent. They were pretty competent before they were really good at it.

They just didn't recognize it. Now they recognize it, which is a massive shift. So absolutely recommend it because I feel like they feel that they've been supported to do the course, which brings a level of confidence. And then it's just fitted with them on the way that they work and the way that they learn so they could utilize that style.

So definitely recommend it. In terms of business settings, from a data point of view, I don't think it really matters what type of business. The approach to data and data analysis and data visualization and requirement gathering and storytelling is no different. I don't believe in different settings. Obviously the slightly different challenges and maybe different timescales of different kinds of stakeholders that you've got to manage, but it's the same.

So I'd say it could be done this training would suit any setting, makes sure that the company that wants to do this are invested in the [00:09:00] staff on will give them the time to learn because if they don't then yeah, it's gonna, it's not gonna.?

Steve:?[00:09:05] It's a conversation we often have around, you need to invest time to be able to save time and, fundamentally we're looking to improve the productivity of the people that come through the course, have you found that with your team already??

Ella:?[00:09:17] Yeah. I think what's been great is them as the analysts have started to collaborate more and it already we're sharing ideas and stuff, but now. They're doing it even more. They're learning from each other as well. So some of my, I picked a one thing and someone to speak to the other, so they provide each other support and they're not coming to us as much or reaching out for some things that they used to reach out for, that they don't need to anymore.

They've also gained, more confidence and more ability to go and find the answers themselves, whether they come to the Q&A sessions that, that you provide. All being able to find the answers through Google because they now know what they're asking for a little bit easier. So that confidence of drawn.

So yeah there's so many factors in the improvement [00:10:00] that we've seen and they feel confident. They're thinking about where they were just before they started the role kind of moves. So much more fall with it. If anything, the confidence has grown and that their abilities grow and we see loads of great stuff, that's come out of them and some of the, their approach is changing too, which is great, which is what we want it. We want it to see it.?

Steve:?[00:10:20] Cool. That's really good. I'm really glad that you and the team have a, have all benefited from going through the program. I want to really thank you for your support through that as well.?

?Ella:?[00:10:28] It is really fab. And so you've done a really good job. It's definitely what people need. And I guess, yeah. No, we've got this conversation about how organizations need to approach that support and training as well, whether they build a similar structure internally and I'm sure there are companies that do, but those that just can't because of budget and timescales and expertise or whatever, this is, this is real expertise in the way that you're delivering is really good.?

Thank you. I really appreciate that. [00:11:00] And on that note, I'd like to say a big, thank you. Thank you very much. You're very welcome.

(PS?- If you are a?leader?looking for similar results for your team members, then book a?discovery call?with me now to discuss whether we can help.)