How to build a company culture of “data or it didn’t happen”‍

I used to work on the data team at a company called Monzo. At Monzo, data was a first class citizen and everyone was expected to use data to empower most, if not all, of their decisions. I used to carry around a mug that said “data or it didn’t happen” and this felt like a comment that wouldn’t have been out of place in a lot of meetings.

The ratio of data people to everyone else in our ~1000 person company was 1:40. With everyone wanting to use data to drive their decision making, but so few data people to help them do it, this meant that as the data team, we needed to be sure we were making data as self-serve as possible.There was a lot that went into this, but there were 3 things that still stick out in my mind as having the largest impact:

1. Having a BI tool with a semantic layer (Looker). This meant that the data team could define metrics and dimensions using complicated SQL, but the rest of the company could build queries using these pre-defined fields by just clicking buttons (no SQL necessary!). This made us less like the gatekeepers and more like the enablers for data insights.

2. ‍Having a dedicated data person to answer data questions every day. The data floater duty. Every week, one person from the data team would be responsible for fielding questions from #data-ask. This was a channel where everyone at the company could ask (and also answer) questions about data. This made sure that everyone felt really supported in their data tasks since help from the data team was consistent, collaborative, and just a Slack message away.

3. Onboarding tutorials for our BI tool. Lookin’ good: the starter pack. In my third month at Monzo, I created an onboarding series for our company on how to use our Looker instance. It was great to have a really powerful BI tool, but if no one knew how to use it, then it didn’t really matter that we had it. So, I took on the title of “Katie the Looker Lady” and made the onboarding tutorials that were used by the majority of our company to be onboarded to Looker.‍

We’ve built some things to help you get started!‍

These are the three tips I tend to share when folks ask me about ideas for how they can get data-driven decision making to work at scale. It’s great to talk about these things, but normally people also want actions they can take to actually implement these things.For the last 2 years, we’ve been working at Lightdash to build a tool that will solve #1 for lots of organizations. And as much as I wish I could be a #datafloater4lyfe, I think chatGPT or the rest of your data team are probably in a better position to help out with #2: all the day-to-day data questions. But today, I’m excited to announce that we’ve just launched something that will help with you get started with #3:

Shining Light on your BI-sness: Getting started with Lightdash(because what good would an onboarding series be without a pun).We’ve created a series of onboarding videos that cover everything from navigating Lightdash to creating charts and dashboards (you can find them all on YouTube, here).But, I’m not just going to send you away with some videos and hope for the best. I also wanted to give some best practices on how you can most effectively use these videos in your organization to set your team up for success with Lightdash.‍

Here are my five tips for getting the most out of the Lightdash (and really any) onboarding:

1. Make the Videos Accessible‍

The first step in using Lightdash's onboarding videos is to make them accessible to your team. You can do this by uploading the videos to your internal training platform or by sharing a link to the videos with your team. By making the videos easily accessible, you'll make sure that everyone has access to the same training materials.Our onboarding series is available on YouTube here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0KkGNSO0W0P0JOrScLet9Nvn9mY0L_H-‍

2. Set Expectations‍

Before your team starts watching the onboarding videos, it's important to set expectations. Let your team know why you're introducing Lightdash and what you hope to achieve by using the tool. Explain that the onboarding videos are designed to help them get up and running with the tool quickly and efficiently.Here’s an example of what you might say to your team:‍

3. Encourage Active Learning‍

While watching the onboarding videos is a great way to learn about Lightdash, it's important to encourage active learning as well. Encourage your team to try out the different features of the tool as they watch the videos. This will help them retain the information and become more comfortable with the platform.We suggest building problem sets specific to your company’s data that reinforces the concepts learned in each video. This helps your team to not only get more comfortable using Lightdash, but also more comfortable with the data in your project!‍

4. Create a Support System‍

As your team starts using Lightdash, it's important to create a support system to help them with any questions or issues they may run into. This could include a dedicated Slack channel, a help desk email address, or a designated person who is responsible for answering questions about Lightdash. By creating a support system, you'll make sure that your team feels supported as they start using the tool.‍

5. Track your success using Usage Analytics‍

Once you’ve got your onboarding system all set up, it’s time to share it with your team and track the success of your efforts. We’re a BI tool after all, so what would these tips be without some data insights. You can use the Usage Analytics Dashboard in Lightdash to get an overview of the user activity in your Lightdash instance.

I’d suggest using the “Number of users” tile to help you track how many users you’ve gotten to try Lightdash (you might want this to be some proportion of your total company, for example).I’d also suggest using the “% of weekly querying users” tile to help you track the retention of users on Lightdash. If people aren’t using Lightdash at least once a week, it’s unlikely that they’re building a habit of using it to make data-driven decisions.‍‍

We hope we’ve made it easier to get down to BI-sness!‍

Lightdash's onboarding videos are a great resource to help with building your data-driven company culture. By making the videos easily accessible, setting expectations, encouraging active learning, and creating a support system, you'll make sure that your team is prepared to use Lightdash to its full potential. So what are you waiting for? Start using Lightdash's onboarding videos today and empower your team with the power of BI.Any and all feedback is welcome :)  

You can open an issue in GitHub, or come chat to us in the Lightdash Slack community!