| |JULY 20238CIOReviewIN MY OPINIONNearly every large organization understands the value of analytics and data science in improving decision-making, and has made investments in personnel and infrastructure to that end. Yet many don't have a comprehensive roadmap for upskilling their teams. Relying on external hiring alone to address skill gaps is cost-prohibitive, especially in today's job market, so developing internal talent is a necessity, and a systematic upskilling program is the best method to accomplish that. Internal hires often have company knowledge lacking in external hires, especially in the areas of business literacy and data literacy, which, along with technical literacy, are needed for maximizing return on analytics investment. I have worked in analytics for different organizations in different industries for over twenty-five years, and I have been an analytics educator for over ten of them. In addition to learning from the organizations for which I have worked, my students have shared their own workplace experiences with me in my capacity as an adjunct professor. From our combined experiences, I have learned of several ways that high-performing organizations are meeting the upskilling challenge:· Creating an analytics/data science acceleratorAs part of theteam that developed the Quantitative Analytics Development Program at PNC Bank, I have seen firsthand how an analytics accelerator effectively grows talent. This program, now in its sixth year, alternates periods of formal education with immersive apprenticeship to multiple analytics teams in rotation. Participants graduate from the program having familiarity with products, business processes, data sources, as well as the technical agility to apply what they have learned.· Sending your analysts to analytics conferences - internal or externalHands-on offsite conferences can be effective for the right analysts, but as an upskilling method, this is too costly to scale. As an alternative, consider having internal conferences just for your own teams. Whether demonstrating how to code a random forest model in Python, or teaching data users where and how to find information in the corporate data lake, or explaining why Simpson's Paradox can result in an incorrect marketing analysis. These are opportunities for your analysts to teach and learn at low-to-moderate cost. Keeping the conference virtual can help manage costs even more.· Scheduling periodic learning meetingsMuch less costly and labor-intensive than conferences, weekly one-hour meetings can cover presentations on specific topics, or serve as something like a professor's office hours, where people can ask questions and get answers.· Creating internal online forumsWhen questions cannot wait for the next regularly scheduled meeting, posting them internally and getting answers from knowledgeable peers can help improve skills and productivity.EXCELLING AT ANALYTICS ONE STUDENT AT A TIMEMichael MinaBy Michael Mina, Vice President, Decision Science and Analytics, PNC
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