Mo Villagran is a seasoned business analytics expert and the author of Data Insights Delivered: 7 Proven Steps to Understand Stakeholders, Manage Expectations, and Deliver Actual Value. In this episode, she joins host Ian Cook to discuss the role of the data concierge and the issues she sees in communications between business and technical stakeholders.
Mo Villagran is a seasoned business analytics expert and the author of Data Insights Delivered: 7 Proven Steps to Understand Stakeholders, Manage Expectations, and Deliver Actual Value. In this episode, she joins host Ian Cook to discuss the role of the data concierge and the issues she sees in communications between business and technical stakeholders. They discuss how to achieve equal ownership among stakeholders, how to know you are providing value and moving your mindset away from that of an “order-taker”.
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Key Quotes:
“What I have experienced is that the business [stakeholders] are willing to listen. IT, I think they're also willing to listen, but they're so used to give me the requirements and I'll disappear, three months later, I’ll come back. So, it's this working tradition that was never being challenged.”
“The only thing that will make or break a data project is whether you engage with the stakeholder or not.”
“I want people to change their mindset. You are not an order-taker. When people tell you something that doesn't make any sense, or you don't understand it, it's within your rights and good for everyone that you ask them. Take an active approach to say, I would like you to explain your own words; I'm trying to understand.”
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Show Timestamps:
(01:19) Why Mo decided to write a book
(03:39) Who is a data concierge?
(05:31) Achieving equal ownership between business and technical stakeholders
(08:31) The challenges in communication throughout a project
(10:43) The importance of paraphrasing and translating communications
(12:08) Finding the real problem
(15:08) The minimum viable product in a data project
(19:08) Choosing the most efficient solution
(22:02) The importance of quarterly goals, versus activity driven KPIs
(23:21) How to know you’re providing value
(31:23) Mo’s hopes for the impact of the book
(33:23) Changing your mindset from an “order-taker”
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Sponsor:
This podcast is proudly sponsored by Seek, the leader in cloud-based creation and delivery of industry-focused insights.
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Links:
Connect with Mo Villagran on LinkedIn
Data Insights Delivered, book by Mo Villagran
Connect with Host, Ian Cook, on LinkedIn
Follow Seek on LinkedIn
Ian Cook: [00:00:00] Some days it feels like we're drowning in data, but data isn't knowledge data without context, but the expertise to understand it. It's just something eating up storage space in your warehouse. That's where being insights driven comes in. Insights driven organizations focus on generating actionable insights rather than just collecting and munging data.
Insights drive better decisions. Welcome to the Insights Factory.
Welcome to the Insights Factory. My name is Ian Cook. I'm the CTO here at Seek. My guest today is Mo Villagran. Mo Villagran is a business analytics expert with comprehensive knowledge in healthcare sectors such as fraud detection, insurance pricing, and genetic research. She pioneered our company's business analytics program and currently oversees teams delivering ETL processes and analytical frameworks.
These efforts provide valuable insights for stakeholders and clients. Outside of her data focused role, she also [00:01:00] authors science fiction series that delves into contemporary history and morality within an intergalactic setting. She's also the author of a brand new book, Data Insights Delivered, and is going to be one of the topics that we cover here today.
Mo, thank you so much for joining me on the Insights Factory.
Mo Villagran: It's such an honor to be here. Thank you.
Ian Cook: Fantastic. Let's start with this. Do you remember the moment that you thought? This ought to be a book, what I'm doing, I need to work this into something that I can share with other people, the meeting, the day, the event that really made you think, now I'm going to do
Mo Villagran: it.
Yeah, I do remember that moment. It was last year. Last year was probably one of the hardest time in my career. I was, um, a team number one for a while, and I realized that, you know, I've had a success even just by myself and talking to several people within, including my career coach, I realized, okay, why suffer is not, Just individual.
This is a universal in our field. And that's why I [00:02:00] realized that this is going to be beneficial. For me to put it out there, and there are several thoughts. Either I can just write it online and make it like a, you know, e book or a platform. And there are many options. I decided to go with the book because I also have goals to publish a sci fi.
I figured that if I can't do a non fiction, then I probably can't do a fiction. So this is a challenge. For myself.
Ian Cook: So you decided, all right, forget the mediums, forget the sub stacks. We're going to make this a book, make it available to a ton of people. Where do you start with something like this?
Mo Villagran: This is actually a very interesting, I think it's almost inspiration.
Like at the beginning, I knew that I had a, I have a way with people, but there weren't really like a seven step thing. It wasn't until I sat down and said, you know, if I'm going to write a book, I'm going to have chapters. And I was reading an agile book, which I don't really agree with that particular.
version of Agile. I'm not going to say one Agile. I just did not agree with it. And I said to myself that if [00:03:00] I can just follow the pattern, but make it so simple and accessible with no jargon, no ceremonial meetings, and that will be a plus. And that's where I work for us again, because books, you know, famous books always start with something steps, right?
So seven steps. And then that's where I start to formulate that each step. With example, because I don't want to write a history book. I don't want to write a book that's filled with platitude. You know, it has to have simple steps. Examples and people can follow.
Ian Cook: That's fantastic. So before we get into what each one of those steps are, I want to just touch on a number of items.
One of the things you mentioned in the book that I think is a really interesting idea is something called the data concierge. So are you thinking about this? Is the data concierge a brand new position? Is this something you've created or how do you think about that data concierge that you describe? I
Mo Villagran: want people to think that it's a fluid role.
It's not a one person role. Like for me, I happen to know back end and front end, so I can kind of do it [00:04:00] myself, but I personally think it's healthy and realistic for a team. To hold on to that role, meaning they do it together with equal partnership and equal ownership, because it's too much for one person to know all the back end, all the power BI things and building a data lake versus all they have to be a domain expert in accounting, ERP, Salesforce, you know, just too much.
And the role I created is not a role that people can just say, oh, hire a data concierge. It's about you stepping up, changing the mindset.
Ian Cook: So it's not necessarily something I should go write a job description for throw it up on LinkedIn and expect a bunch of people to apply to
Mo Villagran: definitely not. I think that would be unrealistic. So if
Ian Cook: you're looking for a data concierge, where in your company are you looking for this? I
Mo Villagran: usually go for the, the business analyst first.
So there are one or two people that I train up [00:05:00] in my company right now, because they are, have the business knowledge. All they need is the last mileage. Like they might not be able to build daily, which my team can help with. But then when it gets to, okay, let's say I make them a data mart, then what I need is to take that data mart and make some Power BI themselves, what kind of graphs you want, what kind of trend line that, that fits your needs, you can change whenever you want.
And that's what I have been really head up that, that section to own it.
Ian Cook: That's terrific. One of the things you mentioned in the book is, um, equal ownership. So you're thinking about two different sides of this coming together. One is very technical. One has a great deal of business expertise. Is one of those generally harder to find to you?
Or have you had experiences in your career where that tells you one of these two things is often the most, um, missing or necessary in the mixture?
Mo Villagran: I think most of the project is missing. So When I was in consulting, I was like a young analyst, right? I was a [00:06:00] consultant. We didn't really have like direct contact with the clients.
I remember they asked me to do. A click through dashboard, you know, when click through was so popular. And I was making it, I was like, wait, how do I know what they want it to look like? You know, and back then I just had this idea, like maybe if I can just do it in real time with them. But my boss was like, no, because then you have to charge them by the hour, it's too expensive, just do it and see how it goes, right?
So of course that project kind of failed, like most of the dashboards. When we made it, they said they don't like to click on things.
Ian Cook: Really, they just didn't want to go to it and click on things to look around.
Mo Villagran: No, and so I thought it was funny because I was making a click through dashboard, but they didn't want to click.
Ian Cook: You'd think it's, uh, baked into the name people would expect to see some clicking.
Mo Villagran: And I think it's just the lack of communication. Just like when we pitched that project to them. It's like, you know, we're going to visualize your monthly report. We're going to do one, two, and three. But what they didn't really account for is what do I really need?
Eventually, I think that the conclusion was. [00:07:00] They needed a PDF automated report. That's what I needed.
Ian Cook: So they claimed they wanted something, but it wasn't exactly what they wanted. Do you think, in looking back, where could you have gotten to that kind of answer before you even took on the discussion, or took on the work for the ClickView dashboard?
Mo Villagran: If I were in a position of managing this process, I mean, at the time I wasn't, right? If I were in a position to go back... It started with listening. It's the step that you have to start first, because people, stakeholders with no technical background, they'll always have problems describing what they need.
You know, imagine people going to the therapist, I feel down, but why? They can't figure out that's why they're there, right? So you're gonna start asking like these really broad questions. Okay, so you said you want a dashboard. Why? Oh, because, you know, it takes a very long time to make a monthly report.
Okay, do you like a static? Maybe. Okay, so then they continue to explore that, right? [00:08:00] Because if they're like static... Then let's do PDF automated report, then building a full blown dashboard with 20 tabs and clicking with filters. Do you
Ian Cook: find that one side often is more reticent to start listening than the other?
So I can understand perhaps the business expertise side is of the opinion that All that technical stuff should just be left to someone else. Whereas the data, the technical side of the data side might say, we don't want to be told how to do something. We know the best way to go through that. We just need the person to look at our, at what we deliver.
Mo Villagran: I think I want to take a step back at the real process, or the experience I have experienced is that the business are willing to listen. The IT, I think they're also willing to listen, but just they're so used to give me the requirements and I'll disappear. Three months later, I come back. So it's like this working tradition that was never being challenged.
So when the business says something, they thought, Oh, they listened. They must [00:09:00] understood. And then when it went back, they didn't really ask the question or a demo in real time. They kind of just made it. And three months later, when they get together, I said, Oh, you only deliver A and B. I want the C.
Where's the C? They were like, Oh, I didn't understand. And so like a lot of time lost because there was really no regular communication. I think it's not because one part doesn't want to listen or the other part doesn't want to take orders. It's uh, It's like, oh, things are always being done like this. You know, why challenge?
Like it's uncomfortable to reach out to a stakeholder constantly for questions. And I can understand that. It's also weird for stakeholders to deep into your, your process and saying, Hey, where are you at? Do you want help? You know, it's like. It's weird for them. Sure.
Ian Cook: So we've talked about it a little bit, but let's really dig into it now.
Um, you say you've got a seven step process. I don't know if you want to go through all seven here, but give us a sense of what is this process you're talking about that the concierge and these teams need to go through.
Mo Villagran: I think this process is [00:10:00] based on common sense. Like seriously, when I wrote it, I actually thought it was so dumb, almost didn't finish.
But, there is value in common sense in our current work lifestyle, right? So many times I've seen is that people say something, I, I, sometimes I was just a bystander. Like, you know, I wasn't really in charge of the meeting, I was just listening. And, someone says something and, and I was like, yeah, that's, that's what I need.
And then the other side of the interpreter is the opposite. And I think it just, they never really... Not just they didn't listen. Maybe they listened, but they didn't paraphrase. This is the second step. Like, you need to explain your own word. Like what you just heard. I know it sounds redundant, but you have to do it.
That doesn't
Ian Cook: sound redundant. One of the things that struck me when I was reading the book is, I don't know if you've ever run across this, but people often describe something called the Feynman technique when learning a new skill. One of the things you do, there's a number of steps to it, but one of the things you do is attempt to teach it to someone else to prove that you understand it.
And when you [00:11:00] hit a point where you don't really know how to explain it to someone else, that's when you find the time to go, all right, I need to dig into this a little bit further. So I thought it was really interesting when you talked about paraphrasing. There's a point at which you need to say to someone, here's what I'm hearing.
You say this again, like your therapy example, it's a great example that just, you know, so that people know that you've heard, you phrase it back to them. But especially in this case, where you're probably dealing with a lot of technical information, you say, here's exactly what I'm hearing. You say you want, you get the other person to say yes or no, or be able to refine that.
Um, I thought, I thought that was a really key and interesting idea, despite the fact that you think it's such common sense that you might not need to write it down, I would suggest, you know, Even Feynman thought it was a necessary thing to write down. So, all right, great. We've paraphrased. Somebody's heard us.
What happens next?
Mo Villagran: What happens next is that you have to find the problem. So I'm like, you know, I know some people say, why didn't we just come here to talk about the problem? The thing is because the non stakeholder, like the non tech [00:12:00] stakeholder, they do not understand their problem sometimes is something else.
Like, you know, the most common one I've heard is that I want a dashboard. That's great. But when you look into it, all their data is in Excel. There is no centralized database. What you need is some sort of data architecture. It doesn't have to be all in the cloud. It can be on premise, whatever you want.
Anything that makes sense to pull the data in a centralized location that you can constantly feed into Power BI or Tableau. That is the process you need first before you can get a dashboard, but most people don't understand that.
Ian Cook: That sounds like a lot. Have you been finding that that's successful in a single meeting, or is this a longer process to even get through the first several steps to the point where you've pinned down the true
Mo Villagran: problem?
I see it as a very repetitive process. Basically, you're going through step one to four basically a few times, especially if the project is really big. What's going to happen is you want to break it down into The things that you can finish in [00:13:00] one financial quarter. If you work for a big company, you want to show something in three months.
Ian Cook: Because that's a short time frame where the company will see some sort of value relatively quickly.
Mo Villagran: Yeah, because what I experienced, you know, in my particular experience is that when I came on board to my current job, they wanted a dashboard as well. But what I realized is that they really didn't have anything but Excel.
And so what we needed to do was to build a data lake. But building a data lake takes time, right? You have to find all the different source systems. I cannot go on and say, I need six months to build a data lake before I can show you some dashboard. The tech people say, Yeah, that's the right time frame.
That's what exactly we need time to do this. But the thing is, I need to look better. I need to appear. I need to be competent in their mind that I need to be the solution. That I'm getting things done. So the workaround is... It's also something that I discovered throughout the process. I do make a dashboard, but use the flat files [00:14:00] first.
And then once they see that, oh man, this can be done, then I use that time when they relax, you know, knowing that things can be done. And go back to the backend and try to build that replicator. Yes, it's kind of double work, but that helps with credibility. That helps with the trust.
Ian Cook: And do you see a reflection of that in sort of, so I come from a startup based world, uh, something that we refer to constantly that everybody that deals with startups thinks about is called an MVP, a minimum viable product.
It's the first thing to show. That there is something of value in what we're doing. So it sounds like that kind of first step that, all right, it's built on flat files. It's not got the pipelines it needs. It's not going to refresh at the same rate until somebody goes in and updates that Excel file. But I can show you what this will look like down the line and then get feedback and work through that process.
That's really interesting to me. Um, is that a proper analogy or did I, did I butcher anything in there? No,
Mo Villagran: [00:15:00] this is great. Yeah. I know the MVP process. Yeah. But in software engineer, like, you know, they always talk about this. And, and I think in data is the same thing. It's just that people are afraid to show like the unfinished product.
But I think that if you have the trust there, like if you have been constantly communicating like this is what I can do right now. But knowing that there are more work coming out. They, if you prep them to that point, they, it will be very receptive. And also if you show them, they can tell you what else they need.
Cause sometimes, Oh, I didn't know that this thing can be done in this way. Can we add one, two and three? And say, yes. And from there you can know, Oh, okay. I need to add something in the backend. And it's funny. They don't really care about the backend. Like, you know, as long as you're refreshing it, they don't really care.
Like it's mostly my problem with my contractor, right? Like they, they don't feel it.
Ian Cook: Is there something similar to that on their side? There's something going on on the, say, the domain experts side that you're just not that worried about. They just need to come back to you and say X, Y or Z. [00:16:00] Yeah,
Mo Villagran: they, they usually, as soon as you show them something, they, they're pretty happy.
Like, most of the people are happy to see, like, just a little bit of things moving forward, even just a little progress. That really helps.
Ian Cook: I definitely agree. I think we all worry too much about showing that work in progress as though seeing behind the curtain is somehow going to make the other person think, Oh, I don't know if I've hired the right person or you don't seem to be getting it.
I think a lot of people, one, there's a great sense of inclusion. I am a partner in this and I, this is something I want to direct towards you, but also I get confidence that work is being done. I think there's an underlying. Um, theme through your book and you call it sort of working with stakeholders and I've noticed in your social media, you talk about stakeholders a lot.
I often happen to think of it as partnership as well, but talk to me a bit about why you focus so much on the stakeholder throughout your book and in what you discuss.
Mo Villagran: So I think that the only thing that will make or break a data project [00:17:00] is whether you engage with the stakeholder or not.
Ian Cook: Now is this stakeholder somebody within the company or do we think of it as somebody even past the person that you are.
Mo Villagran: It can be anyone that needs something from you. It's, it's as simple as that. Like anyone that maybe they want a cool, uh, quick data pool, or maybe they want a dashboard and want to build a data lake. Anything that you need to deliver someone, something, someone, then that is a stakeholder. I mean, a better term is actually customer.
But, but, you know, because it's all about customer service. Like this whole book is about customer service, right? And data analytics. But I decided against with that term. I feel like. I want to write to a niche. So that's why I chose the word stakeholder.
Ian Cook: Okay. Then when you're thinking about the stakeholders, do you ever, has there been an experience you've had where the ultimate stakeholder is not actually willing to show up to these meetings to, uh, always have a proxy in the [00:18:00] conversations and that's, um, the one you have to deal with?
Yeah.
Mo Villagran: I mean, I, I had a few experience with that, but long story short. I think that it's not that they are indifferent or they didn't care. Sometimes, like if, usually your stakeholder is not an executive. Because they are more big picture, they're not gonna be like, Mo, I need you to make this. No, no, it's not that.
It's usually like VPs or more senior leadership. And I think what they didn't care at the beginning was because someone or people before me have failed them so many times. Like, you know, you know, you heard those horrible stories that people hire contractors and this did a terrible job and, you know, this happens all the time.
Right. And, and I can understand that when they say, Oh, not a data person asked me for technical requirements. See, I'm just so tired of it. It was just like the sixth time I've said it. Right. And so, yes, I have experienced that. The way I do is I wear them down with, [00:19:00] um, persistence, persistence. Yeah. And it's like, you know, I can show you something and I am not them.
You know, you need to give me a fair chance, tell me, and see what'll happen, right? Cause I know it's the sixth time, it's exhausting, right? Get it. Right. But I'm right here and you can feel that I'm listening. Right. So let's do this.
Ian Cook: So this goes back to the point that you're making about communication, showing progress, showing that there's a value there and getting some moving forward.
Cause I, in my experience, a lot of those data projects fail because the people hold it back until the very end and they just want this sort of big reveal at the end. All right. For your processes, we've talked about. Uh, the communication, the iteration showing a little bit of, uh, of progress along the way to do an MVP, what happens next?
How do we, how do we keep moving forward in your process?
Mo Villagran: So after you find a problem, you have to get a solution. That's also sounds good. The solution has to be good and tied to [00:20:00] whatever revenue or things that you really care because there are many solutions to a problem. Like. Yeah, okay, I, I need a data architecture to build a dashboard.
So there are so many, like, if you know the tech, there's so many ways to go about it. What you need to give them the option is the most efficient one possible. For example, I work with several companies. Sometimes you go into a company that some company just only knows Tableau. They have, like, the AWS stack, okay?
You should not provide a solution that is Azure based. Or Microsoft, like this is just kind of doesn't make any sense because then they have to spend more money like built on top of things. It just doesn't match and compatible. So there's one side or another thing is, you know, let's say if I'm an AI expert, I go in, I realize this is a very simple problem.
Given the simple solutions, then an AI solution.
Ian Cook: Right. I think that's. Absolutely correct. I something I've encountered a lot. People [00:21:00] want something fancy, and often it's coming from the other side. They want to be able to say, well, our company does AI. Our company does all this machine learning, and they have a very straightforward problem.
And the answer is to do something much more simple than that. But they're looking for something much more complicated. So it becomes like you said, this kind of, you know, Mm. Work with them persistently to say, you know, I can get to the point of the problem. I can get to you a better solution without worrying about the rest of that.
When you're working on these solutions, you say, you know, find the one that works best. To my mind, one of the things that that needs on the other side is a clear Take care. Bye. Metric of success, or perhaps we can call it a KPI, or an indicator of what exactly the business is looking for. Do you have, um, much experience in, say, working towards building these with that kind of business metric in mind?
Mo Villagran: Actually, I don't have it. I'm actually against it. I mean, in a way, let me, let me tell you in another way. I think [00:22:00] everyone should set goals. Everything should be accountable for certain goals every quarter, right? You know what you need to deliver. But what I'm against is the activity driven KPIs. This quarter, we must build 10 dashboards.
What does that mean? Does 10 dashboards bring you more money? Get you more sales? Bring you better customers? Or do you just need one? That a really good one? And also, a data team must work, uh, Oh yeah, okay, so, JIRA tickets. You must... Get rid of JR tickets 10 per person every week. So first of all, the ticket can be big and small.
Like... What quality of ticket are you talking about a big ticket or a small ticket? And it makes people, you know, people are only insensitized to, to do what is going to be rewarded, right? Like everyone's the same. I mean, I don't want to do something that I'm not rewarded. So if you say you want me to do more direct tickets, I'm just gonna sub, even subconsciously, I will try to find in quantity instead of quality.
And [00:23:00] that just drives the whole agenda in the wrong direction.
Ian Cook: Are there versions of these that do
Mo Villagran: work well? Uh, I can't think of anything. I mean, someone, someone told me.
Ian Cook: Yeah. So what is your, no worries. Um, so what then is an alternative to, to addressing these KPIs? So how do you know that you've got a solution that's going to drive value for the company?
Mo Villagran: I think a lot is, uh, very, um, subjective. But I think that through the regular communication, you get a pretty clear sense whether they like it or not. Like, the most obvious one is that people start using your dashboard regularly. That's when I know that, okay, something is sticking, and they really get something out of it, whether it's really driving the top line or reducing the top line or not, like, you know, sometimes there's no direct connection to it, but if people are using it, they're telling you, like, they want to add.
One or two things, or can you improve this in this way? Then I know on a, on a conscious level that it's working, it's working for them. [00:24:00]
Ian Cook: That's a definite point where my company is really, really interested in digging in is this question of. All right. You've sat down. You've had this communication. They said, here's what we want.
Here's the dashboard description that we want. You go and you build it. It looks beautiful. It's fantastic. It's working no pipeline problems whatsoever, but you don't see much usage. What are some of the drivers behind that?
Mo Villagran: You know, this happens to me a lot until this company. And I think it was because, you know, over the years, I'm also learning this process.
is that when I was building it in the past, I didn't have much contact with the stakeholders, or maybe like, again, at the beginning, there was never a need for a dashboard. That's, that's also another thing. Like some people, especially people high up, they just want to see an executive summary, one page, be done with it, right?
But there's some level of senior leadership. They want to Be able to see different sectors of different company, how they're doing. Right. [00:25:00] And so every level has their needs. And if I didn't engage with them, I wouldn't know that. Oh, actually, I actually need three versions of dashboard for them. So when I build it, they're all, this looks great, but they never use it.
And I think that's why it's not like people intentionally not using it. It's just that. Maybe the need wasn't even there to begin with. Do you have a part
Ian Cook: of your process that would address this or follow up
Mo Villagran: on this? Yeah, it's the the demo in real time, the regular communication. It's through that process.
that you know, like, how they like it or not. Or if they want to test drive it, you know, because when you show, they will test drive. Like, oh, okay, I like the feel of this and every page, is it too many graphs, too little graphs, and so forth. And then they get a sense of it. Another one is, most of the time, the stakeholders actually have their own homemade reports in Excel, right?
That's not very automated. A lot of times, I just took that and just made them alive in Power BI. [00:26:00] That was the first round of draft. And usually that was mostly sufficient because then they know like, Oh, this is exactly what I want to see. And we're kind of just done with the project. And as long as we have more, but that's when I know that it's going to be exactly what I want, exactly what I need every single month.
It's gotta be worth their time.
Ian Cook: We've come to a solution that we think is tied well to business needs. What happens next?
Mo Villagran: What happens next is that you want to deliver that value. This is the last step. You really want to deliver that value. And so value is different for everybody. You know, some, some company, if they're a little more behind in technology, they think that automated report is awesome, right?
And some, some CTO might be more ambitious. They want AI, more machine learning. My, my philosophy is that I am a I mean, in many ways, I see myself as a service provider. Like, I am providing you with this thing, and I hope that it's valuable to you. But when I say to you, it's [00:27:00] the people immediately using it.
That's how I define it. Because everyone has different things they're driving towards in a company. I'm helping this group for marketing. This is a dashboard for you to see how your marketing effort works. Then I call that valuable. I'm delivering value. But if someone said they want an automated report in general, then I can also deliver that.
Regardless of the content, and that is what I'm going for. So, when people say deliver value, there is no set, Oh, this is value equals. And, it's, it's very personalized. and use case base.
Ian Cook: So there's no specific objective function or cost function that you can minimize and say, now we've identified it and this is the perfect solution and value is being delivered every moment of every day.
Mo Villagran: Every company is different. And, and if I work with a group that they want to see that thing tied directly to their PNL, yeah, [00:28:00] we should do that. And there is a way to measure it. I mean, it's not that clear, but there is a way to get a proxy. And then that is something that in that particular use case, we should work towards.
And in terms of data strategy, again, every company has a different goal. You know, uh, uh, online, um, platform that sells shoes, for example, it sells hundreds of shoes every day. Like their, their value is different. They want to drive sales on real time data. And versus the company that I work for right now is a manufacturing company.
We don't have real time data per se, not that high volume data. And so our goal is different.
Ian Cook: As you were writing the book, did you take the book and its ideas to people you knew to try to talk through it to sort of field test these ideas? How much background or input did you get as you were working on the book?
Mo Villagran: I actually took a very different approach. I wanted this process to be [00:29:00] pure, meaning it's solely coming from me and my observation. I know it sounds unscientific, but that was the beginning that I wanted this to be. Me and me alone for, for now. And then I started writing on medium. So that is where I test my content and also LinkedIn to see how people respond to it, because I perceive there is a marketing void in terms of how to engage with stakeholders, because when you go on LinkedIn, it's mostly about.
Learn this new technology, there's a new platform, there's what data engineers do every day, and these are all very valuable things. But what is, what is missing is the, like, when they say communicate better, how? When they say manage the project better, how? Like, that is the part I'm trying to fill. And it's hard to get second opinions when There's a void.
Ian Cook: Sure. So you're looking for very sort of concrete advice. Exactly. What is it I've got to do with my team and at the company in order to reach these [00:30:00] things. So now you've got that marketing information out there. How have you found the reception to be?
Mo Villagran: Very well. Um, I always thought I, I'm for, first of all, I did talk to 300 people about this book before it was published.
So I did a lot of marketing. And, uh, within about two weeks, I sold over 200 books, which I was really surprised because I thought it takes months and months to build out, and I was fully prepared for it. But the reception was great. Like, people in Morocco would email me and say, I can't get it from Kindle.
How do I get it? So I, I, I researched. They said you had to buy it from France and then mail it to Morocco. And people from India, they wanted to buy the copies. There's only ebook available so they, they had to deal with that because you know, Kindle doesn't really offer paperback. So yeah, I have friends in Sweden.
It's, it's received very well internationally. And that's something I'm really proud of. And also when I wrote this, I ha, I had the international audience in mind because our field is, is very international. You [00:31:00] know, the contractor, you know, my contractor is great. They are from Pakistan. And they're, the people that I work with, they're from Sweden.
And this has to be so simple that they can just pick it up and read and get it and implement. It's not like, oh, let me look up what that word means. And, uh, um, maybe I should read it again. You know, I don't want that.
Ian Cook: When this book, uh, came out, did you have a sense of, if this works well, here's what I'd love to see, uh, happening in more companies?
Did you have a sense of, this is what to me success looks like for the book?
Mo Villagran: I think the success looks to me, I want to see more people implementing it. I want people to really let go of the traditional agile, these Processes are no longer fitting from time to time to really come up with something that they need.
These seven steps, although the seven step is really up to you. Like, you know, you, you do this [00:32:00] process. If you just do one or two at the beginning, you're already better than most people. And, and I would like to see this as a movement. That people take charge. That stakeholder engagement doesn't happen because it just naturally happened.
It's a relationship. You wanna... Nurture it when, when you talk to people about technical requirement. People always say, like, Mo, why don't you, like, force people to say certain things in a certain way? And people always ask me, it's not that I don't force them to tell me something. It's, I have a mental note.
I knew exactly I wanted to fill the blank in, but I don't say it in that way. I don't say, hey, what exact do you want? Do you want bar chart? Do you want this? You know, I want them to talk to me and I, I make professional judgment, like, okay, I think this is what I need. And eventually when I show them the draft, they will see it.
So the process is not transactional. It's more just conversation. You tell me what I need and I'm listening and through my professional experience, I produce something and then you [00:33:00] react to it. So this process is enjoyable. Not like an interrogation.
Ian Cook: I want to say thank you so much for, uh, this conversation.
Are there any sort of parting thoughts that you want to give people? Or if there's some bit of, uh, information that if they just take that away, that you'd hope that they would remember?
Mo Villagran: I, this is one big thing. Out of all this, I want people to change their mindset. Like you are not an order taker. When people tell you something that doesn't make any sense, Or you don't understand it, it's within your right and good for everyone that you ask them to take an active approach to say I would like you to explain your words.
I'm trying to understand. Okay, and then it's not like oh you say something I must take because this is this is something that's gonna cause trouble down the line that you yourself is taking an active effort to manage the project. It doesn't matter whether you're a manager, [00:34:00] a lead, or not. It doesn't matter.
Ian Cook: I think that's a really fantastic and empowering way to end. Mo, where can we find you online?
Mo Villagran: You can follow me on LinkedIn.
Ian Cook: And you said you have a Medium
Mo Villagran: articles? Yeah, I'm also on Medium. It's the same name, Mo Villagran. You'll find me pretty easily.
Ian Cook: Well, terrific. I recommend that everybody check out this book.
It's Data Insights Delivered. My guest and the author is Mo Villagran, and I want to say thank you so much, Mo. I'd had a great conversation and, uh, best of luck with the book. Thank you
Mo Villagran: so much.
Ian Cook: This podcast is proudly sponsored by Seek, the leader in cloud based creation and delivery of industry focused insights. Thanks for listening. If you liked this episode, Feel free to rate and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.