Tesla to Trafalgar, MJ to The Captain, Keys to data success: When the Dean speaks, listen.

Bill Schmarzo has been my go-to resource for all things data since 2013 when I sat him down to explain Hadoop. Bill's since gone on to bring his Dean of Big Data moniker to life, teaching at the University of San Francisco (UCF) & NUI-Galway, publishing an academic paper on data valuation, developing the Big Data MBA course, and publishing five books on the topic (at this writing). He's also a fantastic Dad, Husband, Coach, and friend.

(jump to the full duration interview here , If you prefer to listen, rather than read or watch, the Podcast is on Apple, Spotify, or click below)

Bill's latest book, "The Economics of Data, Analytics, and Digital Transformation" was the catalyst for this conversation, and as happens with Bill, our exploration ranged far and wide.

Bill has run a number of data projects with clients across the country for years, and he has laid out specific steps to help you print money with your data projects. How to build the right team, ask the right questions, define the desired outcomes, and at the end of the day, printing money via measurable outcomes, be they improving retention by 2%, reducing inventory costs by 2.5% and so on.

Success is often defined by the rigor of the pre-work... as it is in every other endeavor of substance. You will not be surprised to hear that human factors are the biggest obstacle to success, not technology, and Bill shares his strategy to convert potential detractors into ardent supporters. Make sure you have support from on high.

"Data Silos today are less a technology issue and more of a compensation issue.... Data Silos are political wars."

- Bill Schmarzo

Bill Schmarzo on the importance of sharing data.

In times of old, when data scarcity was the rule of the day, with limited & asymmetric access, holding data increased the power for those individuals with the information. We don't live in this world anymore. Today, there is more data than we can handle. The signal-to-noise challenge is harder than ever, and everyone has access to a huge portion of the world's data, accessible 24x7 on their phone at a moment's notice. So the power equation has shifted in this world of data overabundance (not scarcity), it comes in sharing, in being the trusted filter & conduit of valuable information (not just data).

And specifically in the context of enterprise data, unlike oil, you can use data over and over again with no degradation. In fact, data actually increases in value with use. There aren't many assets that appreciate with use, but data's one of them, and Bill shares how to extract this value, project by project, data set by data set, printing money from one outcome to the next.

Bill is also a disciple of Design Thinking, and incorporates a number of design thinking tenants in his projects, from the customer journey map to actively making sure as many points of view are included in the process as possible. This surfaces critical leverage points for value creation, and not surprisingly, the best ideas don't come from the top, but from the team on the front lines, the people who get their hands dirty working the customers every day.

Bill Schmarzo on design thinking.

The new book is filled with detailed theorems & laws on the drivers of innovation, empowerment, data valuation, artificial intelligence, and of course, digital transformation. Samples include:

• Economic Value of Data Theorem #2 - It is from the quantification of the trend, patterns, and relationships that drive predictions about what is likely to happen.
• Economics of Artificial Intelligence - Orphaned Analytics - Orphaned analytics are one-off analytics developed to address a specific business need but are never "operationalized" or packaged for reuse across the organization.
• Economic Digital Asset Valuation Theorem - Effect #1 - Since data never depletes, never wears out, and can be reused against an unlimited number of use cases at near-zero marginal cost, reusing 'curated' data and analytics modules reduce the marginal costs of new use cases.
• Digital Transformation - Law #7 - The heart of Digital Transformation is the ability to identify, codify, and operationalize the sources of customer, product, and operational value within an environment that is continuously learning and adapting to ever-changing customer and market needs.

Next, Bill and I explored levels of automation, from descriptive to diagnostic, predictive to prescriptive, you've seen the chart. Where Bill diverges from the pack is the next level, beyond prescriptive, being autonomous. Autonomous defined by Bill in terms of continuous improvement, continuous learning, and eventually leveraging one of the more powerful forces in the universe, scale learning, where each unit in the system, learns from all the other units in the system. Elon, were your ears burning?

Bill Schmarzo on scale learning and autonomy

And of course, I can't get through an interview without touching on leadership, culture, and the connection to innovation. Bill devoted a full chapter to the topic "Creating a Culture of innovation through Empowerment." By empowering the team, closest to the customer, and ensuring a broad range of inputs from ALL the relevant stakeholders, you not only get better inputs, but you can pro-actively neutralize future problems with passive-aggressive cynics sabotaging the project. Bill lays out his 5 Empowerment rules. It's about confident leadership, setting a direction, but giving up tactical control to the team on the ground to make decisions based on the latest information.

• Empowerment Rule #4 - Organizational improvisation yields flexible and malleable teams that can maintain operational integrity while morphing the team's structure and execution in response to the changing needs of the situation.

Everyone in the team needs to be empowered to "lead" when the time and place and circumstance call for it. And what better way to demonstrate this than when the greatest basketball player of his generation, gives up the ball for the last shot to a teammate because that's what the defense dictates. And they won multiple Championships doing it.

An example with a bit more historical significance comes from 1805, when Vice-Admiral Horatio, Lord Nelson, gave his individual ship captains autonomy once the Battle of Trafalgar got underway, enabling the Britsh Fleet to pull a stunning upset win over the combined Spanish and French navies, even though Lord Nelson was critically injured early in the clash.

Bill on leadership and organizational improvisation

We closed out the conversation on some of the softer topics around artificial intelligence, including ethics, bias, & transparency. No simple answers, but the first step is identifying the issue.

Every sit down with Bill provides new nuggets of knowledge. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did and take away a few things that you can apply in your world.

Thanks Bill.

References and Links

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"The Economics of Data, Analytics, and Digital Transformation", Bill Schmarzo, Packet Publishing, 2020

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"The Art of Thinking Like A Data Scientist: Essential tools for leveraging data and analytics to power your organization's business and operational models", Bill Schmarzo, 2019

The Digital Transformation Comic Book: The Adventures of the Dean o' BD Across the 8th Dimension of Digital Transformation, Bill Schmarzo, 2020

Vice-Admiral Horatio, Lord Nelson, by Lemuel Francis Abbott, National Maritime Museum

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Painter Denis Dighton's imagining of Nelson being shot on the quarterdeck of Victory, Denis Dighton, 1825, National Maritime Museum

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