Being the only data professional in a small organisation can be an exciting experience. You’re probably learning new things at a break-neck speed and presented with fundamental questions about what role data plays in your organisation which might never come up in a more established business.
It can also be an isolating experience, where the existing leadership team around you likely have very little data literacy and might have inherited some counterproductive behaviours from past roles. In an environment where everything is urgent and resources are tight it can be really hared to navigate how directly to address this and how much to just get your head down and deliver against the things that the teams around you need.
We’ve been there. It happens in every small business.
Leadership & mentoring#
If you want someone to help you “manage up” and help set you walk this balance, without bringing in someone more senior who might take away some of the exposure and responsibility which attracted you to the role in the first place, then you might want to explore whether a mentoring programme directly with Alan might be useful.
We’ve helped several data leaders and “sole data people” in small organisations to reach their potential and have greater impact. Some of those relationships span multiple years.
Deployable expertise#
Being a small data team can also mean that you’re occasionally presented with projects where you don’t have the skills in the existing team (or yourself). When those situations arise it can be useful to acquire those skills in a light touch way from someone who’s solved similar problems before.
