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By Doug Mairet- VP Data Solutions, eimagine
“Can you just put all our sales data in a table so we can see everything?”
If you manage a data analytics department, you’ve probably heard some variation of this request more times than you can count. It’s the data equivalent of someone asking an architect to “just build a house with rooms in it” – technically accurate, but missing about 99% of what would make it actually useful.
In our previous blog about decision-first data projects, we talked about starting with business decisions rather than technical capabilities. But here’s the thing nobody mentions: you can’t identify those critical decisions from behind your desk, staring at data schemas and wondering what business people actually need.
Your data team needs to get out there and sit in business meetings. Not just the quarterly reviews or project kickoffs – the messy, day-to-day operational meetings where real decisions happen and real frustrations emerge.
The Problem: When Data Teams Work in Isolation
Most data teams operate like a restaurant kitchen that never talks to the waitstaff. They get orders passed through a tiny window (“We need a sales dashboard”), they prepare something technically correct, and then wonder why customers send it back or never order again.
When data professionals work in isolation, several predictable things happen:
Business stakeholders ask for what they think is possible, not what they actually need. They’ve been conditioned to expect tables, basic charts, and simple filters. So that’s what they ask for, even when their real need is something completely different.
Data teams build exactly what was requested – because hey, that’s what good service providers do, right? They deliver a perfectly functional table with all the sales data, complete with export functionality and sorting capabilities.
Nobody uses it. Because what the stakeholder really needed wasn’t a table of all sales data – they needed to understand which deals were at risk of stalling so they could intervene before month-end.
This cycle repeats endlessly, creating frustration on both sides and reinforcing the belief that “business people don’t know what they want” and “IT doesn’t understand the business.”
The Solution: Data Strike Teams
At our company, we’re looking to solve this problem by creating what we call “Data Strike Teams” – small, cross-functional groups that blend technical skills with business domain expertise. Each team typically includes:
- BI Developers who understand the art of the possible with data visualization and can translate business needs into compelling dashboards
- Business Data Analysts with deep expertise in specific domains (finance, manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, etc.)
- Data Engineers who can source, transform, and pipeline the data needed
- Data Scientists (when diagnostic or predictive models are involved) who can build the analytical models that power advanced insights
But here’s the critical part: these teams don’t just work together in isolation. They embed themselves in business operations, spending significant time in meetings, shadowing processes, and building relationships with decision-makers.
What Happens When Data Teams Join Business Meetings
When your data professionals start showing up to operational meetings, magic happens:
1. They hear the real problems, not the translated requests
In a logistics meeting, instead of hearing “we need a shipping dashboard,” your data team hears: “We’re constantly scrambling at month-end because we can’t see which orders are going to miss their delivery commitments until it’s too late to do anything about it.”
Suddenly, the solution isn’t a basic shipping dashboard – it’s a predictive alert system that identifies at-risk shipments days before they become problems.
2. They understand the context behind the numbers
When a finance person says “our gross margin looks wrong,” they might mean it’s technically accurate but missing important context. Your Business Data Analyst with finance domain expertise knows to ask about promotional impacts, seasonal adjustments, or recent supplier changes that might explain the variance.
This context transforms data from “technically correct” to “business useful.”
3. They can suggest possibilities that business people never imagined
Business stakeholders are often naive about what’s possible with modern data tools. They ask for static reports because that’s what they’ve always had. But when your BI developer is sitting in a meeting listening to someone manually compile information from six different systems every Monday morning, they can say: “What if this just appeared in your inbox automatically every Monday at 8 AM, with the key changes highlighted?”
This is the “art of the possible” in action.
4. They build relationships that lead to organic growth
Remember our story from the last blog about the sales executive who was so excited about his forecasting dashboard that other executives started calling us? That didn’t happen because we built something technically impressive – it happened because we built something that directly addressed his real business pain.
When data teams build these relationships and deliver real value, word spreads. Instead of having to market your data capabilities, you’ll have business leaders knocking on your door.
Making It Work: Practical Tips
Start with willing partners
Don’t try to infiltrate every business meeting at once. Find enthusiastic early adopters – business leaders who are open to collaboration and eager for better insights. Success with these champions will open doors elsewhere.
Come prepared to listen, not to sell
Your job in these meetings isn’t to pitch data solutions – it’s to understand business challenges. Ask questions like:
- “What decisions keep you up at night?”
- “What information do you wish you had when making this choice?”
- “What would you do differently if you knew X?”
Focus on decisions, not data
When someone describes a business challenge, resist the urge to immediately jump to data solutions. Instead, help them articulate what decisions they need to make and what would trigger different actions.
Bring domain expertise to the table
This is why Business Data Analysts are so valuable. They can translate between business terminology and data requirements, catching nuances that pure technologists might miss.
Start small and iterate
Use the decision-first approach from our previous blog. Identify one critical decision, build the minimal viable data solution to support it, and iterate based on feedback.
The ROI of Relationship Building
Some organizations balk at the idea of data professionals spending time in business meetings. “That’s expensive technical talent sitting in meetings instead of building things!”
But consider the alternative: expensive technical talent building things that nobody uses.
We’ve seen this transformation firsthand – when organizations implement cross-functional data teams that truly embed themselves in business operations, the results speak for themselves. Our Data Strike Teams have helped organizations move from technology-driven data projects to decision-driven solutions that deliver measurable business value.
When your teams embed themselves in business operations, you get:
- Higher adoption rates – people use solutions that address their real needs
- Faster project cycles – less back-and-forth because requirements are clear from the start
- Organic growth – satisfied business partners become your best sales team
- Better technical decisions – understanding the business context leads to better architectural choices
The Bottom Line
The most successful data teams aren’t the ones with the fanciest technical skills – they’re the ones who understand the business deeply enough to apply those skills to real problems.
Your BI developers, Business Data Analysts, and Data Engineers have incredible capabilities. But if they’re working from secondhand requirements and translated requests, they’re building solutions for problems they don’t fully understand.
Get them out of their cubes and into business meetings. Let them hear the frustrations, understand the context, and build relationships with decision-makers. You might be surprised how quickly “Can you put all our data in a table?” becomes “Here’s exactly what we need to make better decisions.”
The best data solutions aren’t just technically impressive – they’re business essential. And you can’t build business-essential solutions without understanding the business.
To learn how cross-functional data teams can accelerate your analytics initiatives and drive real business value, please contact Doug Mairet- VP Data Solutions
