Value Driven Data Science: Boost your impact. Earn what you’re worth. Rewrite your career algorithm.

[00:00:00] Dr Genevieve Hayes: Hello and welcome to Your Value Boost from Value Driven Data Science, the podcast that helps data scientists transform their technical expertise into tangible business value career autonomy. I. And financial reward. I'm Dr. Genevieve Hayes, and I'm here again with Dr. Peter Prevo, a water engineer and data science manager with a PhD in business to turbocharge your data science career in less time than it takes to run a simple query.
[00:00:32] In today's episode, you'll discover a practical approach for articulating what makes your data science skills uniquely valuable to your organization through the creation of your own personal data science value proposition. Welcome back, Peter. Why should your stakeholders care about what you do? Could you tell them in the time it takes to ride a lift from the bottom of your building to the floor on which you work?
[00:00:59] Although elevator pictures are very common in the creative arts, a few data scientists are able to articulate their value without any technical jargon, diluting their impact and reducing their worth in the eyes of those who could most benefit. Now, Peter, as part of your initiative to market your data science team within the water authority where you work, you developed the following value proposition.
[00:01:27] The data and insights team collaborates across the organization developing and maintaining innovative analytical reporting and information management tools. Our mission is to transform data and information into actionable insights by seamlessly integrating data sources to empower our colleagues to enhance the customer experience, reduce our environmental footprint.
[00:01:56] Ensure regulatory compliance and secure financial sustainability. Why did you decide your team needed a value proposition to effectively market itself internally to begin with?
[00:02:09] Dr Peter Prevos: The reason I wrote this is because. My original team got merged with another team. So originally it was only me and three other people, and we were writing reports. And there's another team of developers doing data integrations and app development and so on. I was decided to merge this team, so it gave me an opportunity to really rethink about what is this team actually about?
[00:02:28] And also to create this cohesion that everybody understood what the purpose is. And coming from this sort of marketing background, I thought, well, the value proposition, in a nice sort of bit of prose, always helps. Now mindful that this is not something we print on t-shirts or put on the internet, et cetera.
[00:02:44] This is a guidance statement in my business plan that helps me to summarize a lot of this that we do. And it creates purpose for everybody. 'cause now everybody knows that we're not just writing reports, we are actually reducing our environmental footprint. We're not just writing reports. We are actually making sure that our customers.
[00:03:02] Have a great experience that the water doesn't run out when they're in the middle of a nice hot shower. That creates purpose for the team.
[00:03:09] Dr Genevieve Hayes: I remember reading about the British Olympic Rowing Team, how apparently they hadn't won a gold medal for. I dunno, a hundred years or something. And they had as their focus,
[00:03:20] will this help the boat go faster? And that was all they kept on focusing on. So I can imagine this is sort of the same purpose, you could have your data scientists focusing on this value proposition and saying, the work that I'm doing, does it help reduce the environmental footprint?
[00:03:37] Does it help people to not run out of hot water during their shower, things like that.
[00:03:41] Dr Peter Prevos: Exactly, and also more informally. I've been sort of positioning the team and saying we are tool builders, and then physically with a smile or say, our job is to replace you with ai, but that's of course not true, but we'll surf that wave as well. But no, we are tool builders.
[00:03:56] We are here to make your life easier so that you can achieve the goals that we just mentioned. And once you have that purpose really clearly focused in your mind all the other. Bits that I spoke about last week, the process of service delivery, the people aspect there,
[00:04:11] the promotion aspect, they will fall into place.
[00:04:14] Dr Genevieve Hayes: So if we take the value proposition you created, what are the essential components that make it effective?
[00:04:20] Dr Peter Prevos: Well, what a good value proposition does, and by the way, a value proposition is more than just the, the nice poetry it's supposed to also. Support it with a model of working. Spoke about last week.
[00:04:33] The most important thing is that you understand what the value is that you provide. And this is really trying to understand what your colleagues or your clients, what they really need. What are their pain points? And there are some value proposition models out there that you can Google.
[00:04:48] And a famous one is a value proposition canvas. And they talk about setting up a customer profile, what are their pains. So for example, we did some work with the team that's responsible for becoming carbon neutral. So part of their pain was, well, lots of spreadsheets, lots of data sources.
[00:05:05] So that's really understand that. What are the gains that they want to achieve? Well, they want to be carbon neutral, so how can we provide a data tool that actually helps 'em do that? Then what are the activities that your client actually does from a dollar perspective?
[00:05:17] And often it's about, oh yeah, I go to this. Report. Then I copy and paste this data into that spreadsheet, and then I go to that report and I do this type of analysis and so understanding all these customer jobs, and then once you understand the customer. Then you can go away and relieve the pains and maybe automate some of the jobs and achieve those aims.
[00:05:40] This value proposition that you just read is also directly hooked into the strategic, the strategic plan of the organization. That's of course of what most important, right? We're not a data team in itself. We are part of a large organization, so this relates also to our current strategy as well.
[00:05:57] Dr Genevieve Hayes: So. You've basically articulated a framework for creating one of these. It's basically understanding the purpose of your stakeholders, understanding the purpose of your organization, and then that essentially dictates the purpose of the data team because their main role is to help their stakeholders and their organization to create value.
[00:06:26] Dr Peter Prevos: We are a service provider within an organization. I believe that every data team in the world does that, and being a service team is not about. Living in servitude and just doing what other people tell you to do. It's about being proactive and really understanding what those needs are.
[00:06:41] Dr Genevieve Hayes: So for listeners who wanna start implementing what we've discussed today, what's one step they could take tomorrow to start articulating their value to themselves and to their stakeholders?
[00:06:53] Dr Peter Prevos: The first step is to make sure you have a deep understanding of the strategic direction of the organization you provide value for. Again, whether that's internal or external, is beside the point. And when you have that full understanding, trying to then articulate. How data plays a role in that strategic direction of the organization.
[00:07:13] And I think then the the pieces will fall into play, but it will require what I mentioned earlier, the understanding of the end user of the data. What are their pain points? What are their activities? What do they want to achieve? For you to be able to articulate that. Then once you jot that all down on a massive piece of paper or a mind map or whatever method you want to use, then you can sort of workshop a nice value proposition statement if you choose
[00:07:38] Dr Genevieve Hayes: Well, once you've got that information, you could probably work with Claude or Chat GPT and they could help you with it.
[00:07:43] Dr Peter Prevos: Yeah. In full admittance. Yeah, I have done that. So it's totally my pros. Yeah. And it's. Are fantastic in that to just take a massive bit of information and turn into something that's consumable.
[00:07:55] Dr Genevieve Hayes: Yeah, give you the words to say what you want to say.
[00:07:58] Dr Peter Prevos: Exactly.
[00:07:59] Dr Genevieve Hayes: And that's a wrap for today's value boost. But if you want more insights from Peter, you are in luck. We've got a longer episode where we discuss how adopting marketing principles has allowed Peter's data science team to position themselves as value creators within their organization.
[00:08:19] And it's packed with no nonsense advice for turning your data skills into serious clout, cash and career freedom. You can find it now, wherever you found this episode or at your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for joining me today, Peter, and for those in the audience, thanks for listening. I'm Dr. Genevieve Hayes, and this has been Value Driven Data Science.