What do you think?
Rate this book
Analytics: The Agile Way
For years, organizations have struggled to make sense out their data. IT projects designed to provide employees with dashboards, KPIs, and business-intelligence tools often take a year or more to reach the finish line...if they get there at all.
This has always been a problem. Today, though, it's downright unacceptable. The world changes faster than ever. Speed has never been more important. By adhering to antiquated methods, firms lose the ability to see nascent trends--and act upon them until it's too late.
But what if the process of turning raw data into meaningful insights didn't have to be so painful, time-consuming, and frustrating?
What if there were a better way to do analytics?
Fortunately, you're in luck...
Analytics: The Agile Way is the eighth book from award-winning author and Arizona State University professor Phil Simon.
Analytics: The Agile Waydemonstrates how progressive organizations such as Google, Nextdoor, and others approach analytics in a fundamentally different way. They are applying the same Agile techniques that software developers have employed for years. They have replaced large batches in favor of smaller ones...and their results will astonish you.
Through a series of case studies and examples, Analytics: The Agile Way demonstrates the benefits of this new analytics mind-set: superior access to information, quicker insights, and the ability to spot trends far ahead of your competitors.
This has always been a problem. Today, though, it's downright unacceptable. The world changes faster than ever. Speed has never been more important. By adhering to antiquated methods, firms lose the ability to see nascent trends--and act upon them until it's too late.
But what if the process of turning raw data into meaningful insights didn't have to be so painful, time-consuming, and frustrating?
What if there were a better way to do analytics?
Fortunately, you're in luck...
Analytics: The Agile Way is the eighth book from award-winning author and Arizona State University professor Phil Simon.
Analytics: The Agile Waydemonstrates how progressive organizations such as Google, Nextdoor, and others approach analytics in a fundamentally different way. They are applying the same Agile techniques that software developers have employed for years. They have replaced large batches in favor of smaller ones...and their results will astonish you.
Through a series of case studies and examples, Analytics: The Agile Way demonstrates the benefits of this new analytics mind-set: superior access to information, quicker insights, and the ability to spot trends far ahead of your competitors.
- GenresNonfictionBusiness
304 pages, Hardcover
Published June 30, 2017
18 people are currently reading
58 people want to read
About the author
Phil Simon
29 books101 followersPhil Simon is a dynamic keynote speaker, world-renowned collaboration and technology authority, and advisor. He is the award-winning author of 14 non-fiction books, most recently The Nine: The Tectonic Forces Reshaping the Workplace.
He consults organizations on communications, collaboration, project management, and technology. His contributions have appeared in The Harvard Business Review, CNN, The New York Times, and many other popular media outlets. He also hosts the podcast Conversations About Collaboration.
He consults organizations on communications, collaboration, project management, and technology. His contributions have appeared in The Harvard Business Review, CNN, The New York Times, and many other popular media outlets. He also hosts the podcast Conversations About Collaboration.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
February 9, 2019
A little of a 1/3 of this book is useful. The book provides a brief intro to Agile and Kanban boards, but nothing really useful in terms of operationalizing agile for your machine learning projects. Some straw-man case studies along the lines of xyz company believe in agile and in situation A when you have requirements in flight they'll be better prepared than ABC company who uses water-flow methodology.
The rest of the book is the author's soapbox on why this or that company will fail and what is or is not the future of "analytics". Comically his first example after doing a brief on Foursquare includes FB using user demographic data to market. He says something to effect that people are ok with this sort of data mining. The book was published in 2017 but was clearly written before FB got caught in the s**t show.
Probably best to just go through Jira docs directly or get a dedicated book on Agile if that's what you're interested in. The stuff on data science was next to useless. Not recommended
The rest of the book is the author's soapbox on why this or that company will fail and what is or is not the future of "analytics". Comically his first example after doing a brief on Foursquare includes FB using user demographic data to market. He says something to effect that people are ok with this sort of data mining. The book was published in 2017 but was clearly written before FB got caught in the s**t show.
Probably best to just go through Jira docs directly or get a dedicated book on Agile if that's what you're interested in. The stuff on data science was next to useless. Not recommended
October 8, 2023
Curiosity lead me to see what was hiding in my ignorance. This quality introduction bred additional analytical curiosity. Certainly an overview written for a novice and not intended for anyone with previous knowledge.
May 9, 2018
Nice, easy book to read. The premise is that you need to adopt agile methods for building analytics solutions. This book is geared more for those who are developing analytics tools to be used by others and makes the point that agile software development methods (eg scrum) are highly relevant for developing analytics solutions.
September 4, 2018
For years, I’ve heard plenty of analysts talk about leveraging the various agile models that have merged through IT organizations over the past couple decades. This book shows how to apply those concepts. What I liked most about it is Simon is always practical. He covers just enough of the concepts as is necessary, and then focuses on application and examples. I also appreciated how the examples draw from top industry cases and equally his own experiences. Analytics: The Agile Way should make the reading list of any contemporary analyst or analytics leader.
December 9, 2018
As a business intelligence and analytics professional who has been incorporating Agile techniques into projects, I was looking forward to learning how others have delivered Analytics in ‘the Agile Way.’
While this book talks about Agile, and about Analytics, it didn’t spend much time on actual ‘Agile Analytics.’ It would’ve been interesting to hear *how* (and if) Agile was employed in the Analytics projects cited, and why it was particularly effective as compared to other approaches. Paraphrase: “Company X used analytics to improve employee retention.” That’s great, but many analytics projects produce measurable results. Was this particular case study an example of Agile Analytics and if so, how did using Agile make a difference compared to alternatives?
Ultimately I don’t feel this book delivered on the promise of its title. It may have some interest for anyone looking for analytics case studies at big-name companies.
While this book talks about Agile, and about Analytics, it didn’t spend much time on actual ‘Agile Analytics.’ It would’ve been interesting to hear *how* (and if) Agile was employed in the Analytics projects cited, and why it was particularly effective as compared to other approaches. Paraphrase: “Company X used analytics to improve employee retention.” That’s great, but many analytics projects produce measurable results. Was this particular case study an example of Agile Analytics and if so, how did using Agile make a difference compared to alternatives?
Ultimately I don’t feel this book delivered on the promise of its title. It may have some interest for anyone looking for analytics case studies at big-name companies.
January 27, 2020
I’m a data nerd and will read Scientific articles for fun ... but this book was hard to get through. Maybe if I had no prior exposure to Analytics the text would have been more engaging, but it was no new content for me and I found the authors tone to be persnickety and self-congratulatory. Had I not been required to read this for class I would not have bothered finishing it.
August 15, 2019
Provides a general overview over Agile and it's use in analytics but does not dive in depth into how to to apply it in industry. A good guide for a first year graduate about to enter industry but not worth reading for a seasoned professional.
March 29, 2019
neither the agile nor the analytics book I hoped for. It present some interesting examples but little practical knowledge
May 13, 2021
The central thesis of this book is that analytics teams could benefit from using agile frameworks. As an analytics lead in a big company who loves using agile frameworks, I'm a big fan of the topic. The book gets off to a slow start by affirming the importance of analytics, which might be helpful to people earlier in their careers but felt redundant to me. The case studies from the author's own experiences are the definite highlight of the book. Despite my enjoyment of big data tools (I <3 code), I learned the most from the tutoring case study, which used basic tools to analyze small data.
Read
June 8, 2017Phil Simon (DC 1993), Author
From the author:
For decades now, companies big and small have embraced Agile software development methods. The rationale here is straightforward: * Why take one or two years to fully deploy a system, app, or website when so many things can and do go wrong? * Why try to cook one big batch and boil the ocean? * Why not cook many smaller batches? Double that when the world changes faster than ever. Brass tacks: It’s no coincidence that methods such as Scrum have exploded with no end in sight. Yet, when developing and using analytics, many organizations paradoxically continue to think in terms of traditional, phase-gate IT projects. (I’ve argued against doing that very thing.) That is, they optimistically plan for six-month or year-long projects to launch dashboards, key performance indicator (KPIs), data-visualization tools, predictive models, and their ilk. Antiquated techniques abound. In so doing, these organizations bet—often incorrectly—that they will diligently gather every requirement and data source. In their conceit, they assume perfect conception, planning, and execution. Even if they pull off these enormous feats, it’s usually a fool’s errand for one simple fact: the world is moving faster than ever. This is insanity. My eighth book is Analytics: The Agile Way. The book demonstrates how intelligent organizations such as Google and Nextdoor are approaching contemporary analytics. (TLDR: It’s vastly different from how their counterparts continue to do it.) At a high level, the text shows how organizations are applying the same Agile techniques that software engineers and developers have successful used for years, but in a different area: analytics. In so doing, individuals at these smart companies can understand—and, most important, act upon—nascent opportunities far faster than their more traditional counterparts do. Using a combination of case studies, examples, and exercises, Analytics: The Agile Way demonstrates how this new mind-set affords tremendous opportunity for organizations willing to embrace uncertainty and move fast.
From the author:
For decades now, companies big and small have embraced Agile software development methods. The rationale here is straightforward: * Why take one or two years to fully deploy a system, app, or website when so many things can and do go wrong? * Why try to cook one big batch and boil the ocean? * Why not cook many smaller batches? Double that when the world changes faster than ever. Brass tacks: It’s no coincidence that methods such as Scrum have exploded with no end in sight. Yet, when developing and using analytics, many organizations paradoxically continue to think in terms of traditional, phase-gate IT projects. (I’ve argued against doing that very thing.) That is, they optimistically plan for six-month or year-long projects to launch dashboards, key performance indicator (KPIs), data-visualization tools, predictive models, and their ilk. Antiquated techniques abound. In so doing, these organizations bet—often incorrectly—that they will diligently gather every requirement and data source. In their conceit, they assume perfect conception, planning, and execution. Even if they pull off these enormous feats, it’s usually a fool’s errand for one simple fact: the world is moving faster than ever. This is insanity. My eighth book is Analytics: The Agile Way. The book demonstrates how intelligent organizations such as Google and Nextdoor are approaching contemporary analytics. (TLDR: It’s vastly different from how their counterparts continue to do it.) At a high level, the text shows how organizations are applying the same Agile techniques that software engineers and developers have successful used for years, but in a different area: analytics. In so doing, individuals at these smart companies can understand—and, most important, act upon—nascent opportunities far faster than their more traditional counterparts do. Using a combination of case studies, examples, and exercises, Analytics: The Agile Way demonstrates how this new mind-set affords tremendous opportunity for organizations willing to embrace uncertainty and move fast.
September 14, 2017
Phil Simon's Analytics: The Agile Way does an excellent job capturing and illustrating how premier organizations like Google, Amazon, and others are leveraging Agile-based analytic thinking and processes within the Big Data period we now live in. This is an essential read for anyone working as or aspiring towards becoming an analytics professional!
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews