Do Teams and Businesses Really Want to Engage Citizen Data Scientists?

Is the Citizen Data Scientist Approach Successful? A Ten Year Review

In a recent article, Dataversity repeated a Gartner prediction that “by 2025, 95% of decisions that currently use data will be at least partially automated.”

With more than ten years of Citizen Data Scientist promotion behind us, it is worth taking the time to revisit the concept to consider whether the idea has taken hold and whether employees and team members really want to take on this role, or whether they would rather leave those tasks to data scientists and business analysts or IT staff.

There is no doubt that the Citizen Data Scientist approach can support many goals and provide numerous benefits including:

  • Data Democratization
  • Improved Data Literacy
  • Improved Decision-Making
  • Organizational Alignment of Objectives and Goals
  • Data Sharing and Collaboration
  • …and many other benefits.

But businesses can only reap those benefits if they can successfully transition business users into the Citizen Data Scientist role.

How Successful is the Citizen Data Scientist Initiative? Ten Years On, We Take a Look at the Results

When we ask whether team members really WANT to embrace this role, we must also consider whether the enterprise has given them enough information, support and training to fully appreciate the opportunities and the benefits to them and to their fellow team members. Adding or changing responsibilities and roles cannot happen in a vacuum and it cannot happen by fiat.

Just because an organization announces its intent to roll out the Citizen Data Scientist approach, that does not mean everyone in the business will fall in line.

Resistance can come in many forms and originate from many sources. Team members may be uncertain about the benefits to them or the added responsibilities, or they may think they are incapable of doing this type of work, or perhaps they are just not interested and they see this additional task or change in process as a hassle.

So, what does all this mean? When we consider the last ten years, and the success or failure of the Citizen Data Scientist role, we see that:

  • Those organizations that take the time to address the cultural shifts and provide support and a feedback loop to capture and address issues as they arise are much more likely to succeed.
  • Some enterprises begin on a smaller scale, rolling out the concept into a particular business unit or department to build a reputation and success that they can use to promote the idea across the business.
  • Some businesses identify and select staff members who are likely candidates to become Citizen Data Scientists and allow these team members to lead the way. As the role gains acceptance, they may (or may not) allow other team members to apply for the role or they may identify others who are ready to take on the additional responsibility.
  • Organizational support for this role and a process and path to include communication with data scientists, IT and business analysts will allow Citizen Data Scientists to shift projects and data to these advanced professional roles as it is deemed necessary for strategic outcomes.

As the Citizen Data Scientist movement evolves, new technologies and capabilities will further expand its application.

  • Translating complex data into ‘stories’ to make the data easier to consume and understand.
  • Integrating budgeting and planning to achieve end-to-end forecasting.
  • Monitoring and analyzing the audit process to enable detection of bias and equal assessments and outcomes for staffing and processes.
  • Allowing team members to analyze complex data in near real-time
  • Creating personalized processes and skill assessments to streamline and adapt for skill assessment and targeted training, processing, etc.

As we take a step back from the current view of the Citizen Data Scientist community, we can see that success is largely dependent upon planning, addressing workflow, processes and culture before and during the roll-out and putting a process in place to continuously assess feedback and adapt for continuous improvement.

Yes, evolving technology will take us to the next level for Citizen Data Scientists, and for the organization, but as with any advancement in technology and systems, the success of this approach is largely dependent on how it is implemented and whether the team, managers and IT are involved in the planning and execution.

Contact Us to find out more about how the Citizen Data Scientist approach can benefit your enterprise and how you can successfully implement this approach within your organization.

Original Post : Is the Citizen Data Scientist Approach Successful? A Ten Year Review!

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