Great post! It had me nodding in agreement too. I have had the same experiences, especially when it comes to any reporting revolving around finance. Better to do it the wrong way consistently than have to rewrite and retract any past reports.
On the flip side, sales reporting and metrics change so much that it's hard to keep up. Commission rates change, account managers change territories and back again, but they want to keep reports consistent. Total nightmare.
Total nightmare is right. I approach the whole job as an iterative process of continuous improvement but that doesn't always gel with non-data savvy stakeholders. The idea that something is only as "right" as current data and knowledge allow it to be is a hard pill for some people to swallow.
If we frame it like "Smoking was encouraged in the 1950s but medical advances show it's dangerous now. Should we all still be smoking filterless cancer sticks now because that's what people did for years?", they might start to get the concept!
Total nightmare, because on the face of it it's like gold. I found something that was wrong and now I can fix it. The ultimate in job satisfaction.
It's not just non-data savvy stakeholders it doesn't gel with, but stakeholders who are either incredibly risk adverse 'if we change that metric then everything will break/the big boss will ask questions', or the stakeholders that can see the work it will take to change every report that the wrong metric flows into and just can't be bothered.
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Great post! It had me nodding in agreement too. I have had the same experiences, especially when it comes to any reporting revolving around finance. Better to do it the wrong way consistently than have to rewrite and retract any past reports.
On the flip side, sales reporting and metrics change so much that it's hard to keep up. Commission rates change, account managers change territories and back again, but they want to keep reports consistent. Total nightmare.
Total nightmare is right. I approach the whole job as an iterative process of continuous improvement but that doesn't always gel with non-data savvy stakeholders. The idea that something is only as "right" as current data and knowledge allow it to be is a hard pill for some people to swallow.
If we frame it like "Smoking was encouraged in the 1950s but medical advances show it's dangerous now. Should we all still be smoking filterless cancer sticks now because that's what people did for years?", they might start to get the concept!
Total nightmare, because on the face of it it's like gold. I found something that was wrong and now I can fix it. The ultimate in job satisfaction.
It's not just non-data savvy stakeholders it doesn't gel with, but stakeholders who are either incredibly risk adverse 'if we change that metric then everything will break/the big boss will ask questions', or the stakeholders that can see the work it will take to change every report that the wrong metric flows into and just can't be bothered.