CHAPTER 2

Designing Data Strategies for the Real World

The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.

—Michael Porter

It seemed like the fires would never stop burning. I found myself in the middle of a project where everything was falling apart, all the time. We were missing deadlines, people were unhappy, and I was tired. This didn’t make much sense to me. The work we wanted to do wasn’t hard. I had done similar work before with great results. We just couldn’t get things right in this project.

This is the point where you realize the value of strategy. We were lost in the middle of the forest. We couldn’t see the way out because all the trees looked the same. In this project, all we could do was keep putting out the fires and hope to ...

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