This is a fantastic article, thank you for providing such a balanced perspective on the tradeoffs involved in these complex decisions. I've worked on data teams at companies large and small, with all 3 organizational structures. Companies usually start with a central team, then move to an embedded or hybrid model as the data needs scale beyond what a central team can deliver. However, if this transition is managed poorly, it can kill morale on the data team as they now have less autonomy over their work and have to answer to less data savvy managers and often can't say no to time wasting ad hoc questions. It takes a strong leader to manage expectations with business teams, and mature leadership to grant the data team autonomy.
Thanks for the lovely comments, I enjoyed getting all my thoughts down on 'paper'.
The move from a central function to embedding Analysts in teams is really tricky. It's so easy to feel silo'd and miss out on all the things you pick up just by 'hanging around'. I certainly agree it needs to be handled carefully. I prefer the model where Analysts still report in to a central function for the same reasons you've described. It's too easy for Functional leads to treat the Analyst as a vending machine.
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This is a fantastic article, thank you for providing such a balanced perspective on the tradeoffs involved in these complex decisions. I've worked on data teams at companies large and small, with all 3 organizational structures. Companies usually start with a central team, then move to an embedded or hybrid model as the data needs scale beyond what a central team can deliver. However, if this transition is managed poorly, it can kill morale on the data team as they now have less autonomy over their work and have to answer to less data savvy managers and often can't say no to time wasting ad hoc questions. It takes a strong leader to manage expectations with business teams, and mature leadership to grant the data team autonomy.
Thanks for the lovely comments, I enjoyed getting all my thoughts down on 'paper'.
The move from a central function to embedding Analysts in teams is really tricky. It's so easy to feel silo'd and miss out on all the things you pick up just by 'hanging around'. I certainly agree it needs to be handled carefully. I prefer the model where Analysts still report in to a central function for the same reasons you've described. It's too easy for Functional leads to treat the Analyst as a vending machine.