What your data isn't doing Find the right answer: Five Things I learned from Narrator co-founder Cedric Dussud -
2013. The week is Cedric Dussud's first week in the role of the new engineering director at WeWork.
WeWork hasn't yet become the business that has transformed the way businesses operate. It's managing only a few office space in New York at the time.
But, it's growing rapidly.
The first week of the month, Cedric got called into Adam Neumann's CEO's office.
"So this is Adam who is the department's head I, too," Cedric told me. "And Adam basically says, "Hey, I'm in need of you to develop an automated billing system. And I need it in the next three weeks.'"
That's exactly the way Cedric and his staff did. Cedric's main responsibility during the following five years was the expansion of WeWork's billing systems in the process of expanding WeWork's business from eight locations to up to 400.
Through this process, Cedric learned a thing or two about handling information.
Actually, Cedric and Ahmed Elsamadisi who was an executive engineer in data at WeWork in the early days, learned so much about what it took to scale the operation of data that they designed an entirely new method to simplify it.
Together, they developed Narrator Narrator, which is a platform for data that allows companies to conduct business intelligence operations without the expense of a massive data team.
Cedric was in a position to meet with me recently to talk about the main lessons he took away regarding data in WeWork the lessons he learned and how they have helped build the basis for Narrator today.
There are a variety of ideas that stood out for me. Some of them included:
- The reason why metrics don't necessarily add up.
- What is the next step when there's no longer any one reliable source for truth.
- Why you should be skeptical regarding the privacy of the personal information you have stored.
- In the event that you require an expert in the field of data science, they can assist you (and even if you do not).
The full interview here, or simply go through the important insights I took from our chat below.
5 Lessons Ledric Learned From Cedric's Experiment
I learned a lot watching Cedric's interview. Below are my five main lessons from the interview
1. Data Formulas Are Subtly Individually
Data science offers a significant differentiator in comparison to software engineering.
Within the realm that of engineering software, if you are working on a well-established technology, it's possible to take what previous coders have done before you.
However, with data each time you develop something totally new, it's feasible to replicate the code which is why definitions may have slight variations across the data reports.
Cedric employed the instance of a CEO who demanded quarterly sales reports that was divided into areas.
"You usually have to begin again and make a fresh SQL to deal with it," Cedric explained.
"You kind of hope that, if you were to create the quarterly sales report in the past, that you will be capable of finding a method to make use of the report in order to split it by region, and maybe duplicate their reasoning. If you can't understand the reasoning behind their report, you'll need develop your own. And your reasoning will differ in subtle ways."
If you're using these data for your business, minor changes could be noticed quickly.
"You may end up with many subtle variations in the company," Cedric told us. "And it's commonplace for the CEO to go into the organization and ask, "Why the numbers aren't matching? What's wrong?"
2. There is no single source of the truth
These platforms with built-in analytics are able to give you lots of data, however they can't tell you anything about data flowing through different systems of your business.
Cedric took the lead by citing advertising on the web.
A platform will give you information on the amount of advertisements that have been run, their cost and other details. The platform may also try to determine how many potential customers saw an advertisement prior to making a purchase. If you're advertising on several platforms, there's not a single platform that can provide complete information in order to give a full solution, since they're not linked to each other.
"If you were to sum all the orders Facebook thought it was accountable for, as well as every order Google believes it is accountable for, and so on, it would sum up over 100 percent of all your orders" Cedric explained. "That's an example of when it's impossible to believe the figures. Truth isn't in any of them. The truth is that it is present in all the others."
3. Do not be afraid to question your metrics
Cedric recommends that you not believe in a business's data unless you understand exactly from where these data are generated, and how they're determined.
Also it is essential to dig deep enough to fully comprehend and are confident in the data that you're dealing with in order to make the right the business decision.
"It is far more damaging to overload data as it is to overdo this," he explained. "If you're thinking there's a problem and you're not doing things right, you'll be engaging your mind a lot and be thinking about what you're doing; but the case if you've found a sophisticated software that can answer every question to you, and you'll say, Cool, I'm making the right thing with my data."
4. Employ an Analyst to study your data when your Data is Spread across multiple Systems
There's no reason to have the creation of a huge analyst team from the beginning. Actually, going way too deeply into your data might lead to an accidental distraction
"When you're a small company that's got your head busy with the way things are going and you're able to comprehend the metrics you're using," said the expert. In that case there's no need for an analyst , at the moment, at the very least.
But, as your technology stack expands, the numbers start to appear unreliable for CEOs as well as founders.
"When you're in a situation where data starts to get dispersed across multiple sites and you begin to lose the capacity to comprehend what's going on."
It's the time to seek out an analyst create an comprehensive data strategy -- experts who can assist to ensure that you trust your numbers once more.
5. Concentrate your efforts on projects which will draw new customers.
While Cedric created the system of billing that powers a global business like WeWork but he'd notrecommend that SaaS founders should do the same.
It took months of constant work for Cedric to put a preliminary version of the billing system at WeWork into production, an effort which, in his opinion -- is not worth the cost when it comes to smaller SaaS and software businesses.
"Work in your promotion. Learn to understand the needs of your customers and also research new features- things that can bring your company more business" said the man. "Don't create your own method of billing."
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