As the title suggests, this book is written for data professionals “looking to expand your career and move over to the business side of things” without having to go back to school. It’s a great resource, filled with a glossary of business terms (Chapter 2), concepts (Chapter 4), and organizational roles (Chapter 3). There’s a strong focus on business knowledge and soft skills, assuming you’ve already built up a solid technical foundation. While this might be a lot of new information for some people, the writing maintains a conversational tone, making it easy to read.
Another aspect that stands out in the book is its practical intention. There are journal assignments at the end of each chapter designed to help you grow as a data professional. The assignments contain prompts that encourage you to reflect and critically engage with the topics presented in the chapter. They also contain more actionable suggestions, such as networking with folks inside and outside your company. The assignments also help you find “meaning” in your work with regards to supporting others and the organization itself.
Personally, I learned about a lot of these concepts—sales cycle, churn, RFP, what various roles do—on the job, so this book was better purposed as a review. However, this book could be helpful for data professionals with no business background or are newer to the business side of things. Through the definitions and ample examples, it can help data professionals understand the common language used in business and also guide them in understanding their importance within your organization.
Data professionals at an intermediate level might still benefit from the practical exercises in the journal assignments and examples on how they can work with different functions. For example, the book encourages you to brainstorm “one new way you can help the organization with monetization through data,” in Chapter 5, or to “find what your next presentation will be, and find two ways you can get to know your audience for that presentation, better” in Chapter 9.
Individual chapter highlights include the four “rights” of data introduced in Chapter 1, which helps you focus on business objectives.
- the RIGHT data
- at the RIGHT time
- for the RIGHT objective
- with the RIGHT data literacy
Chapter 3 went into detail about various departments and roles within a company, and featured specific examples of how data professionals can support each function. I also liked that Chapter 7 focused on various issues that might occur, such as bias and lack of buy-in. Lastly, I really enjoyed reading the interviews with business and data professionals in Chapter 10. It was interesting seeing the commonalities and slight differences in responses to the same set of questions.
This book can be purchased on Amazon, or through Kogan Page.
Jennifer loves data visualizations, having worked as an analyst and consultant. She is currently exploring a transition into editing and publishing.
