Data Knowledge Pioneers Ep. 3: Broken Data / Business Workflows Data Knowledge Pioneers

Workstream.io CEO Nick Freund is joined by two fantastic data leaders and practitioners to discuss one of the most common breakdowns in data: the workflows between data teams and the business teams they support. 

Today's guests are Mode Founder Benn Stancil, and Danielle Mendheim, the Director of Analytics & Strategy at Dr. Squatch. 

Learn more about how they envision the problem with these workflows - all the way from the intake of requests, through executing and sharing assets back out with their team - as well as the solutions they've implemented to counteract this breakdown.

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Nick Freund: So welcome back to Data Knowledge Pioneers, presented by Workstream io. And again, we're exploring how organizations create shared consciousness around your data. I'm Nick Freund*, and I'm speaking with leaders and data practitioners about the acute problems folks experience in creating, curating and disseminating knowledge about your data.

[00:00:31] And today specifically, we're diving into the problem of broken data and business workflows. There's lots of form factors to how data teams and business teams work together, and so we're gonna talk a little bit about where that breaks down. Joining me are two awesome data leaders that I'm really excited to explore this topic with.

[00:00:53] So, first off, we have Danielle Mendheim, who's the Director of Data and Analytics at Dr. Squatch, which is one of the fastest-growing natural men's soap and personal care companies in the country. And we also have Benn Stancil, who's the Co-founder and Chief Analytics Officer at Mode Analytic, which is a modern BI and data science platform. You may know him from his Substack. So, first off, Danielle, Benn, just thanks so much for joining me today.

[00:01:19] Danielle Mendheim: Thanks, Nick.

[00:01:20] Benn Stancil: Good to be here.

[00:01:21] Nick Freund: The way I wanted to start was just to see if we could define and just talk about the problem. What is it that we mean when we say that workflows between data teams and business teams are broken? At least from my perspective, every data team has some way that they use to manage requests from other folks in the business, or support work. But no one's typically happy with what ends up getting implemented. And so Danielle, I'm just wondering, is that how you see this problem? Like, are there other ways that you've seen this problem manifest in your experience?

[00:01:59] Danielle Mendheim: Yeah. One, it's definitely a problem. I feel like it's probably one of the biggest problems that we face at Dr. Squatch is, where are requests coming from, and how do we handle all of those different requests? I think the biggest thing is that they come from everywhere. And they're not really defined as what is actually a request, and when does it make the actual sprint? And when is it just simply a team asking the question? And so it's figuring out, how do you separate between those things, that has been the biggest challenge for us.

[00:02:33] Nick Freund: Benn, from our private conversations, I know that for a long time you've overseen internal analytics stuff at Mode, and you've been in data your whole career. How have you experienced this problem in the past? And does what Danielle said resonate with you?

[00:02:47] Benn Stancil: Yeah, certainly. And I think it's kind of broken everywhere, I would say. Where it's broken on the intake basically…