Using Empathy to Drive Business Intelligence

Data conscious companies are becoming more common in today’s ever changing world. Data integrity, Data Warehouse, and Data Governance all work towards gathering, cleansing, and modeling data for use. Business Intelligence (BI) comes into play after the data has been gathered and organized. BI is the art of extracting data and presenting it in the form of metrics, KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), reports, and dashboards. Using empathy when designing BI solutions is crucial in curating the perfect analytic tool for your business.

Learning Empathy         

In June 2019, on a hot summer day, our CTO took us on a trip to downtown Detroit where we attended a design thinking workshop. In this workshop, we were tasked to walk up to complete strangers (based on a certain demographic) and ask questions to understand if they would be interested in creating their own business and use seed money of a said not-for-profit to begin the business.  This workshop changed my life and outlook on how I ask questions and was key to changing how I manage my projects at work. The workshop taught me empathy. Empathy is when you ask questions and LISTEN to actually hear what the user is saying rather than hear what you expect to hear.

Applying Empathy in Developing Analytical Tools

Think of how often you hear someone say that I don’t use this report because it doesn’t do what I need it to. Too often today, empathy is lacking. In its absence, the use of analytics ceases to be a tool through which we can achieve better outcomes for the organization at large. 

Being empathetic means you make it a priority to connect with cross-functional team members in order to understand the impact a given action will have on their area of the business. When you consider the impact of a decision on others — when you empathize — you open the door to true collaboration and to outcomes that are game changing!

Done right, BI can move your business to the next level. But BI with empathy curates the perfect harmony of collaboration, communication, and valuable analytics that can drive better decision making. In short, empathy is what makes analytics work!