By James Dungate
When you’re building a data team, it’s like assembling a puzzle. Each piece is unique and crucial for the whole picture. But what happens when one piece suddenly goes missing? A key team member resigns, leaving you in a bind. It’s a chance to update skills, but BAU (business as usual) pressures are still there, even as your capacity drops.
So, who do you need in your data team?
First, let’s talk about personality traits everyone on your data team should have. These are universal, regardless of specific roles:
● Good Communicator: Good communicators listen well. They understand others and can explain complex ideas simply. This is essential in a data team.
● Resilient: Resilience is crucial. The data world moves fast, and your team needs to handle changes and challenges without breaking a sweat.
● Curious: Curiosity drives innovation. Team members should be eager to learn and explore new ideas.
● Growth Mindset: A growth mindset means embracing challenges and learning from them. It’s about understanding that abilities develop through dedication and hard work.
Now, let’s dive into the specific roles and the skills they need.
Training & User Empowerment
You need someone who can train others and empower users. These people help others understand and use data effectively. Look for someone with strong instructional abilities who can break down complex concepts into easy-to-understand steps.
Patience is crucial. A good hire will understand user needs and tailor their training accordingly. Clear communication is also vital. They need to explain technical details in a way that non-technical users can grasp.
Data Ingestion
Data ingestion is about smoothly getting data into your system.
Extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL) is a key skill in data ingestion as it draws on many core data handling skills. Experience with ETL tools and processes is essential.
Your ideal candidate should be proficient in extracting data from various sources, transforming it as needed, and loading it into the system. Ensuring the data is clean and accurate as it enters the system is crucial too, so they should understand data validation and error-checking procedures.
This suits thorough characters with excellent attention to detail.
Skills in scripting languages like Python or SQL to automate data ingestion tasks can save time and reduce errors. They should also be adaptable, and able to handle different data formats and sources, from APIs to databases to flat files.
Architecture
Building and maintaining the data infrastructure is a key responsibility of your team. The responsible team member needs strong skills in database design, cloud services, and data security.
They should be able to design relational and non-relational databases to ensure the data architecture supports efficient querying and storage.
Familiarity with cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud is important, as is an understanding of cloud storage solutions and, in more complex organisations, data lakes, and cloud-based data warehousing.
Knowledge of best practices in data security, including encryption, access controls, and compliance with regulations like GDPR, is also critical. Plus, they need to design systems that can scale as data volumes grow, ensuring robust performance.
Reporting & Insight
Turning data into actionable insights is vital. Skills needed here include data visualisation, statistical analysis, and using business intelligence tools.
Proficiency with tools like Tableau, Power BI, or D3.js is essential for creating clear and insightful visualisations that help stakeholders understand data trends and insights.
Experience with business intelligence tools is necessary to develop dashboards and reports that provide actionable insights. They should be able to connect different data sources and create comprehensive reports.
To sum up, your data team needs a combination of strong global personality traits and specific technical skills. This combination creates a more effective and adaptable team.
Find out how we can support you whilst you look for your new colleagues.
And if you want even more help, we can support you in developing your database – and data culture - before your new colleague arrives or provide training for new colleagues.
Building a great data team is a journey. Let’s make it a successful one!
