I'm a big fan of doing planning in Septembers. That's because it gives you a full quarter to do the prep work so that when 2024 hits, you can get a full year of results (instead of 9,10, or 11 months of results).
As the every day analyst, what should your goals be? Five questions to ask yourself are:
- What would make me a better analyst (or if you're not an analyst, maybe an insight-getter)?
- What would make my dashboards better? To figure that out, send an email or set up a quick call to your audience to ask this one question: If you had a magic wand, what would you change about this dashboard?If you get that information, then you have a task list for the goal of making your dashboard better.
- What's the adoption of my dashboard? You know the old saying, "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" The same can be said of dashboards. If a dashboard exists and no one uses it, does it really exist? If you don't receive adoption metrics, ask for them. From there, you should be able to ascertain how many times, how many people, and who is using your dashboard Here's why the who is important. I once worked at a place where the how many people and how many times looked okay. When I saw the who, I took out everyone from the IT department because they were the development team and what I learned is that no one was accessing it with any regularity (and they should have been accessing it quarterly).
- What are the organization's goals (the one you belong to and the broader team/line of business)? What, if anything, can you do to help the org meet their goals? That will help keep you aligned with the organization's priorities. Line of sight (from your work to top-level objectives) is especially important.
- What's your overall career goal, and what do you need to do to get there? For organization's this might be your strategic goal. What are things you need to do this year? This might be task based, but it will have a longer-term impact. Thinking about goals before the new year is helpful so that you get the tools or any prerequisite work done before the New Year. This is a great Friday activity when you might have a little more time to reflect on where you are and where you want to go.I'm putting my goals together and would love to hear about yours! Comment, send me an email, or message me on LinkedIn!
