Chapter 1. Choosing Your Data Science Team
There is a wide variety of things a data science team can do, both because the term “data science” is absurdly broad and because different companies have very different needs. Data science can mean a company having a single analyst who makes data dashboards for executives or a team of people creating production-ready machine learning APIs. A company could need help using data to define a business strategy, to make tailored customer experiences, to forecast investments, or something else entirely! Because there are so many different types of work a data science team might do, there are many different ways to staff the team to meet the needs of the business. This chapter covers how to think through who you should hire for your team.
Every data science team will naturally have data scientists on it, but in addition to the data scientists themselves, there are many potential supporting roles that could be included on the team. Having more positions on the team can give you a wider range of capabilities but also requires managing more types of work. Consider that a data science team needs to do all of the following to effectively work:
- Create a vision
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Design a strategy for what the data scientists will work on by communicating with stakeholders about their needs and assessing the capabilities of the team.
- Project management
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Keep track of what is being worked on and communicate when timeline issues arise.
- Stakeholder management
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Work ...