A Note on Analytics Design
[ This is Part 5 of the Analytics Transformation series]
Teams can and should design the collection of their own data (page/screen names, events, properties, funnels, goals, etc).
One of the largest gaps between startup and corporate product teams is that startup teams do the analytics design themselves and corporate teams have specialists who do this.
This slows adoption of data analysis in corporate teams because they don't get to think deeply about how to measure a user experience which is crucial to understanding the success or failure of the user experience.
Designing analytics should be done alongside designing the feature. When adding “Acceptance Criteria” to a task, ask teams to add “Success Criteria” (metrics to collect, analyze, and strive for).
Outsourcing analytics design also delays time-to-analysis since outsiders have to come up to speed on the feature before they can design the analytics.
Over time, leaders can create and enforce best practices to create consistency in how metrics are designed. This is similar to how designers maintain consistency with design guides.
Jim coaches Product Management organizations in startups, scale ups and Fortune 100s.
He's a Silicon Valley entrepreneur with over two decades of experience including an IPO ($450 million) and a buyout ($168 million). These days, he coaches Product leaders and teams to find product-market fit and accelerate growth across a variety of industries and business models.
Jim graduated from Stanford University with a BS in Computer Science and currently lectures at UC Berkeley in Product Management.
