ask "Why?" at least three times in a row until people get to the real pain
point
Why?
✅ Answer ...
Why?
✅ Answer ...
Why?
✅ Answer ...
Why?
✅ Answer ...
Why?
✅ Answer ...
Why does this solution matter?
✅ Answer ...
Who?
For whom are you trying to solve this problem?
✅ Answer ...
Who has this pain?
✅ Answer ...
When?
When do they need your solution?
✅ Answer ...
Where?
Where do they need your solution?
✅ Answer ...
2. Assessing Opportunity vs Risk Trade-off
Six Thinking Hats
Sequence of hats: BLUE -> WHITE -> GREEN -> YELLOW -> BLACK -> RED -> BLUE
BLUE: control and planning
✅ Answer ...
WHITE: just facts and just information
✅ Answer ...
GREEN: alternative solutions, possibilities and new ideas
✅ Answer ...
YELLOW: optimism, advantages and opportunities
✅ Answer ...
BLACK: criticism, difficulties and risks
✅ Answer ...
RED: emotions, intuitions and gut feelings
✅ Answer ...
3. Challenging Business Assumptions
Assumptions and expectations
(they distort reality)
What are the assumptions we are making?
✅ Answer ...
"For my idea to be successful, the following must be true...”
Why am I assuming this?
✅ Answer ...
What if this assumption is not right?
✅ Answer ...
take the assumption, states the opposite and try to convince the opposite
What am I expecting to find?
✅ Answer ...
What do I think I need to find?
✅ Answer ...
Data Scientist:
We believe [subject] has a [problem] because [reason]. If we [action], this [metric] metric will
improve.
Thinking Out of the Box
Have I seen the problem from all points of view?
✅ Answer ...
What is missing in the problem/solution?
✅ Answer ...
What is missing?
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Who is missing?
✅ Answer ...
Why is missing?
✅ Answer ...
How is missing?
✅ Answer ...
When is missing?
✅ Answer ...
Situational awareness
What do I know?
✅ Answer ...
What do I not know?
✅ Answer ...
What I should have known?
✅ Answer ...
4. Defining Success Metrics
Success
What is our definition of success?
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Always speak in terms of business effect
How will we know if we were successful?
✅ Answer ...
Is this solving the REAL problem?
✅ Answer ...
“I will X as measured by Y”
X is the objective
Y is the set of key results you’re looking to achieve
Are you delivering value to the business?
✅ Answer ...
Deliver value means giving insights, suggestions and/or products so that people do things differently. These different actions somehow impact business metrics: revenue and/or costs
Metrics must be
comparable
understandable
ratio or rate
actionable (most important)
it must change the way we behave!
What will I do differently based on this information?
✅ Answer ...
What will you do if I give you this report/product tomorrow?
✅ Answer ...
For every metric, track 3 things:
Goals
What do you want to happen?
✅ Answer ...
Signals
What is the actual thing that you need to measure to know that you're
getting closer to your goal?
✅ Answer ...
Metrics
How do you take the goal and signal and express it as an actual metric over
time?
✅ Answer ...
What is the minimum acceptable for the KPI metric?
✅ Answer ...
In the sales funnel, what we are trying to optimize?
✅ Answer ...
Acquisition
Activation
Retention
Revenue
Referral
Metrics
What is the primary metric?
✅ Answer ...
data is your client speaking directly with you
Take one step back and ask yourself:
What is the real question?
✅ Answer ...
Why?
✅ Answer ...
For what?
✅ Answer ...
What do you want to answer?
✅ Answer ...
What are the health metrics?
✅ Answer ...
health metrics help to avoid cannibalism between business metrics
Are any of these metrics vanity metrics?
✅ Answer ...
a vanity metric is a metric that inflates the ego but doesn’t impact the business
What is the business performance metric that has to be linked with the model performance
metric?
✅ Answer ...
data science = convert model metric into business metric
5. Defining Solution Tactics
Baseline
What will be the MVP product?
✅ Answer ...
What will be the MVP baseline metric?
✅ Answer ...
IoT Method
Input
What is the real business problem?
✅ Answer ...
What are the real business questions?
✅ Answer ...
What is the available data?
✅ Answer ...
Output
What is the best way to make the solution available to the client?
✅ Answer ...
Is this solution straightforward enough to be readily used by the final user?
✅ Answer ...
Does this solution solve the real business problem?
✅ Answer ...
Task
step by step from data to solution
✅ Answer ...
6. Tuning mindset
Mindset
Love the problem not the solution!
Solve the problem regardless of the tool!
Done is better than perfect!
Companies want speed in delivery and not perfectionism in delivery.
Fast delivery of the solution versions (MVPs) with the minimum required quality
If in doubt, dare!
It is better to dare and ask for apologizing later than not to do things because you are asking "please, can I ...?" all the time
7. Prioritizing checkpoints
Prioritization methods
1. Assumption testing
prioritizing by the assumptions
try the riskiest assumptions first
Take your assumptions and assign them a value between 1-10 (10 = riskiest)
Rate the importance of doing that thing (10 = very important)
Add these two values and sort the assumptions based on that
2. The BUC method
First: business benefits
Second: user benefits
Third: cost
Score these dimensions 1-10
Add the score of the benefits and subtract the cost to get the final score
prioritize your tasks based on these scores, with the highest at the top
8. Storytelling presentation
Template
Overview & Index:
What are the main topics of the presentation?
✅ Answer ...
Context, Problem & Motivation:
What is the context of the product, the business or the company?
✅ Answer ...
What is the problem we are facing?
✅ Answer ...
Why we should invest time in solving this problem?
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What is the opportunity if we get a solution to this problem?
✅ Answer ...
Hypothesis Definition:
What is the hypothesis behind this analysis/project?
✅ Answer ...
What?
✅ Answer ...
Why?
✅ Answer ...
How?
✅ Answer ...
Timeline
How do these analyses/project complement the previous analysis/project?
✅ Answer ...
Task
What we should deliver in the end?
✅ Answer ...
Solution Strategy
What is the strategy to solve the problem?
✅ Answer ...
Scope Definition
What is the scope of the analysis/project?
✅ Answer ...
What is being taken into consideration?
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What is not being taken into consideration?
✅ Answer ...
How to Interpret Graphs:
What is the right way to understand graphs and figures correctly?
✅ Answer ...
Solutions, Conclusions, Insights & Actionables
What are the main results, conclusions, insights and/or actionables?
✅ Answer ...
Business Impact
What is the business impact (revenue, cost, efficiency)?
✅ Answer ...
At least a simple (straightforward) estimation.
Does the estimation make sense?
✅ Answer ...
Summary of Results
What are the main results?
✅ Answer ...
Special Thanks
What is the relevant people that made this possible?
✅ Answer ...
Next steps
What are the next steps after these analyses?
✅ Answer ...
What are the points to improve?
✅ Answer ...
Checklist
Is it focused on the solution or on the problem?
✅ Answer ...
focus less on how the solution was done and more on the business return
What is the value of your presentation for the customer?
✅ Answer ...
Will your presentation change the way your customer thinks about the problem?
✅ Answer ...
What is the ROI (Return On Investment) of this solution?
✅ Answer ...
What is the solution idea that you’re trying to sell?
✅ Answer ...
It’s all about your customer (and not you!)!
What does the customer want?
✅ Answer ...
What does the customer need?
✅ Answer ...
What are the customer's expectations?
✅ Answer ...
Are you fulfilling his/her expectations?
✅ Answer ...
Did you take the client's point of view?
✅ Answer ...
Is your solution clear enough (to be used)?
✅ Answer ...
Is it something easy to be understood?
✅ Answer ...
Is it easy to trust your solution?
✅ Answer ...
Does your client know how to use your solution?
✅ Answer ...
Is your solution trustworthy enough (to be used)?
✅ Answer ...
Business just wants to know the value of your solution, it doesn't care about how hard it was to build the solution
Is your solution’s impact crystal clear?
✅ Answer ...
Is your solution’s potential clear?
✅ Answer ...
Are the next steps clear?
✅ Answer ...
What is the question that this plot is trying to answer?