Data Science Teams Need Generalists, Not Specialists
I work in this field and I flatly reject that the purpose of a ‘business intelligence’ team is to “develop profound new business capabilities” or ”organise the data scientists such that they are optimized to learn”.<p>What planet are you on?<p>Such a team is <i>absolutely not</i> a pure research team, devoted to investigating the data and driving new capability and insights.<p>The purpose of such a team is to facilitate the <i>business</i>
to have operational insight into the state of the business, and serve the business as <i>the business requires</i> to deliver business as value.<p>What the article proposes is like having a development team that has 100% time to pursue their interests and build whatever they like to show to the business to develop new business capability.<p>There is a place for such a team, and a data science team as described, but like google X, a very specialised thing for companies that can afford to dream.<p>...not for everyday engineering teams.<p>Generalists vs specialists is a straw man, obviously you have both.