A lot has been written about data science and its applications in the changing paradigm of business culture. Today, every company is thinking to become a data centric organization, giving the highest importance to data and analytics. Despite so much happening in the data science world, you would find that not enough has been done to really advocate the useful and practical ways to effectively build and run a data science team. According to recent reports, comparisons continue to be made between job trends in 2022 with those with pre-COVID times when data scientists were tagged as the sexiest job titles in the world, and not to forget, among the highest paid professionals with highly revered qualifications from the top courses providing certification in data science specialization. However, there has been a noticeable shift in the way the data science specialization jobs are looked at, in 2022, with most hiring managers willing to look beyond the usual talent pool of professionals with data science degrees or data analytics experience. This shift is attributed to data science leaders who are looking to build agile and highly effective data science teams. If you are looking to be a part of such a team, you should be aware of how these teams are built in the first place.
Let’s understand the chemistry behind the creation of highly effective data science teams in 2022 and how to be a part of it.
Understanding who does what.
When you start as a data science specialist, you could be donning many hats at the same time.
You will be baffled at the different roles and responsibilities the same job titles could be governing in different data science teams. And more or less, the analysis behind these differences boils down to how organizational structures work and how each organization envisions the role of data science specialists in their company.
In a modern data science team, you would be taking one of these roles or could be working in collaboration with one.
- Data scientist
- Analyst
- AI and machine learning developer
- Business Intelligence analyst [BA BI Analyst]
- Data visualizer
- Full stack AI developer
- DataOps analyst
- Data Architect, and so on.
Irrespective of what role you are holding in the team, the foundation of this team is laid in “collaboration.” Data science leaders look at the whole ecosystem like a puzzle, and the team members with different job titles as pieces of the puzzle. Like for any team to succeed which is to achieve the goals and objectives, data science teams also have to work in sync to complete and deliver the projects in time, and with the highest adherence to the quality and execution.
It’s only possible when you understand the role and responsibilities of each team member and how it aligns with the job description linked to the title. These are explained in top data science courses in India.
Functional consulting business units
Sporadic high growth data science teams focus on achieving functional outcomes as part of a centralized org chart that brings out the essence of working with a talented and skilled workforce but in a lean manner. This means more is achieved by fewer team members who use up a limited volume of resources such as material, manpower, and time. Overall, functional consulting business units develop specialized data science groups that solve bigger problems in the projects and optimize the overall results that can be accessed by other teams, especially the ones reporting data analytics to business intelligence groups. This is exactly what data science professionals should look to do from day 1 onthe job – build a functional consulting business unit that runs with better funding and resource management with a transformative role in data management, and analytics.
Workshops and team engagements
Yes, you read it right. The way data scientists and data analysts work in a different environment compared to other team members from other departments, say marketing and sales, finance, HR, or IT. The data science teams need a deeper level of understanding, collaboration, and above all, transparent communication.
This is achieved by conducting team building workshops and team engagement activities that introduce different team members to encourage diversity, trust, and reliability – an established framework that reduces the chances of conflicts and disruptions.
In most cases, the advantages of having workshops for data science teams more or less also work for other teams. That’s why it is said that data science learning is an organizational asset in 2022.
