WORKSHOP “Cultivating a Data Mindset in Your Unit”
Motivation
In the era of data, many units within many organizations across all industries are re-evaluating whether they are doing all that they can to allow data to drive their decision making. We often hear stories of a data scientist, or a data science team, hired to bring this vision to life, only to realize that they can’t accomplish much operating in isolation. It takes a village. Even employees in functions that are seemingly unrelated to data analysis have key roles to play in enabling the unit to operate with a data mindset. It is often a different set of people than the data science team who thoroughly understand the questions that can drive activity to the next level, and yet a different set that operates on a lower-level where the day-to-day business gets done.
What We Offer
We offer a workshop that is tailored to the key questions that your unit is interested in answering with the use of data analysis. This workshop is an introduction to the capabilities of data science, motivation behind using data science, and to the mindset that enables data science to break the boundaries of traditional analytics. As such, it does not train participants in data science tools, but rather it sets the foundations for thinking through a data question within a scientific framework, thereby developing a data mindset for employees in any and all functions.
Follow up workshops are available as needed, again tailored to the next steps that make sense for your unit.
How It Works
1. Initial consultation: We start with an initial hour-long consultation with a member of the senior management, which serves for us to become familiar with your areas of expertise, the types of questions important to your unit, the data available, the infrastructure the data is housed in, current data-related practices in the unit, and the key functions of the individuals within the unit. We end this session by setting some measurable goals by which to judge the success of the workshops.
2. Preparation: We then iteratively develop the workshop material with feedback from someone within your unit. The material is tailored to the questions that your unit seeks to answer through data science for maximum impact.
3. Workshop: The 2-hour workshop starts by first illustrating how to think through answering one of your unit’s key questions of interest, from the design stage to the stage of contextualizing inference (see our data analysis pipeline diagram below). We then break into small groups, each group tackling a separate question from within their domain of interest and/or relating to their function, with guided consultation on each step of the way. Specific tools are discussed within the context of their optimal use, with the goal of informing decisions on whether to follow-up with immediate adoption or further professional development. We end the workshop with a reflection on actions to take within a week, a month, and six-months following the workshop, towards developing data-minded approaches that are tailored and applicable to the variety of roles within the unit.
Testimonial
“Thank you again. Everyone seemed to get a good base and that’s exactly what I was hoping for. Our senior management already knows these high-level answers, but we pay other companies to give us this analysis and we are not training our folks that have to support those findings.”
– Jim Ventimiglia | Director, Information Technology and Services, Advancement Services, University of Miami
Contact Us
This workshop is free for units within the University of Miami. Please contact us for detailed information on the cost for external units.
Get in touch with ahadjixenofontos@miami.edu or at 786-449-1517 to request an initial consultation.