Staffing for Successful Digital Transformations

This post is part of our continuing series, Your Guide to a Successful Digital Transformation.

Understanding your company’s digital transformation strategy and needs will help define the critical skill sets necessary for the unique deployment of data and applications in your organization.

You may already have many of the skills below within your organization, even if they are not readily apparent. For example, Data Entry, Data Analysts and other functions that are close to the data may have insights into your data that others may not have the opportunity to glean.

You may also be able to build the skills you need among existing employees by offering training opportunities. A training curriculum based on inexpensive training platforms like DataCamp can make the training experience seem more like gaming for your employees, making them more enthusiastic about participating and learning needed skills in this space.

Whether sourcing and building skills internally or hiring new talent, as you build out your staff, you will need to consider these roles and skill sets:

Solutions Architect: Understands the scope of available applications and translates business problems into actionable criteria for implementation.

Data Engineer: Designs, builds, integrates, and maintains data from multiple sources and understands the structure of the data (e.g. data types, table structures, etc.) without focusing on the context or meaning of the data.

Data Scientist: Gathers and cleans large sets of raw data, creates mathematical models and interprets findings into business solutions. Needs to have an understanding of statistics, predictive analysis and related areas.

Data Analyst: Identifies data insights and translates data results into consumable documentation.

Business Analyst: Focuses on a single business process and understands the metrics and challenges of that process.

Data Visualization Analyst: Creates and manages visualizations and dashboards including reporting and resolution management.

If you seek external assistance from individual contractors, you should ask for and review the vendor’s GitHub or project portfolio (make sure it’s original!) and create an “interview project” for them to complete using your data. Also, with contractors and vendors, there will always be a learning curve as they learn your unique environment, versions, and deployments.

Newer transformation initiatives should also consider prioritizing deep experience and business acumen, whether you decide to hire people as employees or contract with an external vendor. Either way, look for grounded dreamers, those who can execute new ideas within the confines of your company’s goals.

For information about how we can assist in your organization’s digital transformation, contact us. We are here to help.

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