How to structure the team for results (and why)

While we are focused on the data governance and data management portions of the team in this book, I do want to spend just a moment on the analytics side of the team structure. Candidly, I believe there are an infinite number of ways to structure the analytics side of the house, as you can read further in John K. Thompson’s book, Building Analytics Teams (an excellent book for anyone looking to drive excellence in analytics). There are a few ways to optimize analytics that I have leveraged in my own teams. In all cases, it is based on the business outcome I have been aiming to optimize for.

First, if you are internally focused, aimed at driving operational excellence, aligning top-of-the-house metrics, or simply supporting internal operational functions, a simple single team may be your best bet. I have consolidated analytics teams under a single analytics leader in cases where we are optimizing for the company’s internal...