Technical or organizational factors

For the remainder of this chapter, we will examine and discuss the factors that play into selecting winning projects. Our discussion will center on two areas of important factors – technical and organizational. We will address the technical factors first and then move on to the organizational factors.

Data – does it exist, and can you use it?

As we have discussed, we are data scientists and analytics professionals, not alchemists.

If there is no data that directly or even indirectly describes the operational aspect of the company or behavior of the entities – people, processes, products, machines, etc. – that we are to examine and analyze at least once, then the advanced analytics team cannot assist in the improvement of that process, operation, or area.

All analytics professionals experience this situation regularly: the discovery of the lack of data is often accompanied by a sense of surprise, and possibly...