Hi ,
I'll never forget the moment I realised that in data science, what stakeholders say they want and what they really want aren't always the same.
It was one of my first projects
as a data scientist.
My stakeholder - an executive in my organisation - pointed me in the direction of a dataset. and told me to find some "interesting insights".
I saw it as the perfect opportunity to show off my new skills, so I didn't think to question what she'd
asked.
Big mistake.
One month later, I returned with what I had - a flashy presentation, filled with beautiful visualisations and examples of every statistical technique I could manage to apply. I was so proud of my work.
It took my stakeholder less than 1 minute to flip through my slide deck from end to end. "Yeah, I already know this. Tell me something I don't know."
I was devastated. And honestly? I blamed my stakeholder for not being more clear.
But after it happened again... and again... I realised the problem wasn't my stakeholders. It was me.
I hadn't yet learned the art of stakeholder whispering. It was only after figuring out this secret that I was finally able to advance my career.
I recently sat down with Bill Shander, author of Stakeholder Whispering, to share this story, and the lessons I learned from it, in the latest episode of Stakeholder Whispering Live.
You can watch our conversation HERE.
