Data Leadership Done Right: Focusing on Work That Matters

Hi, fellow future and current Data Leaders; Ben here 👋

There are so many projects data teams can take on. Optimizing ETL jobs, building a data lake house to replace their data warehouse, migrating to Apache Iceberg. Many of these projects might not provide your company the value you think it will. So, how do you focus on the right projects?

Before we dive into the article, I’m also excited to share that I’ll be running the second cohort of the Data Leaders Playbook Accelerator. This six-week program is focused on helping data leaders drive more impact and play a larger strategic role in their company. If you’re interested, you can sign up for the program here.

With that out of the way, let’s jump into it!

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Intro

When you first start out as a data engineer or data analyst your focus is often, well, the data. You spend countless hours learning SQL, Python, and the latest tools. Nights are dedicated to refining data models and how other companies build data pipelines and perform analyses.

But eventually, something shifts. A light bulb goes off. You start asking yourself: What’s the point?

You’ve built dozens—maybe even hundreds—of dashboards. You’ve developed complex pipelines designed to make data accessible for analysts. But does anyone actually use them? What value is driven by my work?

As the unsettling thought creeps in, you might start questioning your purpose. I’m just completing tasks my manager assigns—isn’t that my job? Shouldn’t they be the one deciding what’s important?

Some people get stuck there, deferring entirely to their managers to set the agenda. But others feel compelled to dig deeper, asking a more meaningful question:

What work truly creates impact?

The difference between staying stuck and making progress is being a “needle mover.” If you simply complete tasks without understanding their value, you’ll struggle to advance in your career or create meaningful change for your organization.

As a data leader, your responsibility is clear: identify and pursue projects that move the needle.

Quick Pause: As many of you know I have been writing a book over the past few months focused on data leadership. This is one of the few chapters I am releasing early.

In this chapter, you’ll not only find actionable insights and writing but also over 30 minutes of exclusive video content split into two in-depth videos. These videos are only available here—you won’t find them on my YouTube or anywhere else.

If you’d like to support this newsletter and gain access to this exclusive content, consider becoming a paid member today. Your support means the world and helps me keep creating valuable resources for you.

Along with the exclusive content, the early part of this chapter will also include segments from the article Thinking Like An Owner. As that was an initial first stab at this topic.

How To Find Projects Worth Doing

Finding meaningful projects starts with a deep understanding of the business. As data engineers and analysts, we have unique access to core metrics and raw data, giving us the tools to ask questions and uncover insights others might miss.

The key is taking a moment to pause and reflect, rather than defaulting to delivering data pipelines and dashboards. Start by asking questions about the data and its relationship to the business. For instance, if you work at a Starbucks, McDonald’s, or a Cava-type restaurant, a key metric might be Comparable Store Sales. In a hotel, it’s likely Occupancy and Average Daily Rate. But simply knowing the metrics isn’t enough—you need to understand how to influence them.

Ask yourself:

• What factors actually impact occupancy?

• Was there a logical reason for it to drop this week, like a storm or seasonality?

• Are competitors pricing lower?

• If we reduced prices, would we see an increase?

Most businesses already have strategies and goals tied to these core metrics—or other priorities they deem critical. Your job is to identify projects that can make a tangible difference.

These goals will vary depending on your team. For example, if you're on an HR team, your metrics might not be directly tied to the company revenue. However, every team has a role to play in driving overall business objectives.

Ultimately, you want to prioritize projects that:

1. Align with your team’s or company’s goals.

2. Give you clear credit for your contribution.

Understanding the right metrics is just the first step. To drive real impact, you need to think beyond the tasks of an IC and start adopting the mindset of a business owner.

Some other tactical bits of advice

1. Hold a listening tour: At Facebook, our team conducted a “listening tour” where we met with different teams to discuss the work we’d delivered and ask about their daily challenges. From these conversations, we compiled a list of potential projects, ranked them by difficulty and impact, and matched them with team members’ interests.

2. Leverage Data: Unlike many other teams, you have access to a wealth of information and the technical skills to analyze it. Combine that with a strong understanding of the business, and you can identify opportunities, such as areas where costs are unnecessarily high or where processes could be optimized.

Think Like An Owner

I recently spoke with Celina Wong, former Director of Data and Analytics at companies like TULA Skincare and Poppin and now CEO of Data Culture. She emphasized the importance of acting like an owner. This means understanding your company’s core metrics, examining the profit and loss (P&L) statement, and positioning yourself as the go-to person for key questions.

I couldn’t agree more. Taking ownership of your work is crucial when selecting impactful projects.

It can be tempting to say ‘yes’ to every request that comes your way:

• Running quick ad-hoc queries or building pipelines without much thought feels efficient.

• Delivering fast analyses or satisfying a stakeholder’s immediate request provides instant gratification.

• At the end of the quarter, you can even report dozens of completed tasks—Hey, we’ve delivered 100 data pipelines or data sets!

That sounds productive, right? But just because it feels productive doesn’t mean saying ‘yes’ is always the right choice.

Productivity is more than just quantity. Instead of blindly doing what people tell you, pause and ask yourself:

• Will this project move the company forward in a meaningful way?

• If I owned this company, would I consider this work valuable?

I get it. It’s not your job. Your manager should determine your priorities, right? While that’s partly trust, the times in my career when I experienced the most growth were when I took ownership and proposed solutions unprompted.

Not every manager will reward this initiative—in fact, some might even punish it. If you can, avoid working for those managers. A good manager will recognize your efforts to take ownership and guide you, even if not all your ideas hit the mark.

Taking ownership is a skill—and a mindset—that pays off in the long run.

If No One Knows About Your Project, It Doesn’t Exist

Early in my career, a consultant gave me a very valuable piece of advice that didn't fully resonate until months later:

“If no one knows you’re working on a project, you might as well not take on the work at all.”

At first, this felt extreme—after all, plenty of valuable work happens behind the scenes. Some projects don’t need visibility to be essential. However, the core truth still holds: impactful work needs to be seen and recognized to create lasting value for both the business and your career.

Here are a few strategies to ensure your projects gain visibility and recognition.

Share about your project

A common mistake among ICs is assuming their work will naturally speak for itself. In many companies, however, visibility matters as much as results. Someone else will often be better at promoting their impact, leaving your contributions overlooked.

Be proactive—share what you’re working on, the insights you’re uncovering, and the value your work is driving.

Get buy-in early

Securing leadership buy-in provides visibility and builds broader support for your project’s success. Yes, it can feel intimidating to present your work to decision-makers, but that’s exactly what you should aim for. You want people to be invested from the start.

Without early buy-in, even if you do complete your project, you might not have the support to implement it. Imagine you develop a model that could significantly reduce company costs—an impressive achievement. However, leadership is currently focused on expansion and lacks the operational staff to implement it. Had they been involved earlier, they could have adjusted priorities and allocated resources accordingly.

Proactive communication ensures your work doesn’t just get completed—it gets adopted and makes a difference. Don’t wait for recognition after the fact—call your shots early.

Give credit where it’s due

Recognition is most powerful when shared. If other teams or individuals contribute to your project’s success, make sure they receive proper credit. Publicly acknowledging their contributions strengthens cross-team relationships, expands your internal network, showcases your ability to collaborate, and reflects positively on your leadership skills.

Types Of Projects Your Data Team Can Take On

Not all teams and companies are in the same state. A project that might drive significant results in one company could feel irrelevant or premature in another—not because the project isn’t valuable, but because the company or team might be treading water, focused on maintaining stability rather than advancing new initiatives.

Will Larson explores this concept in his “Four States of Teams” framework, which describes teams as either falling behind, treading water, repaying debt, or innovating. This idea is especially relevant in today’s environment, where many companies are running toward AI initiatives while still working through foundational data challenges. Pursuing innovation will be difficult if your team is still paying down data debt.

That doesn’t mean valuable work isn’t possible. Many projects focus on maintenance or operational stability, while others aim to gain trust from leadership. You can’t always swing for the fences—sometimes, base hits are what create lasting momentum.

Here are a few types of projects to consider.

Needle Moving Projects

These projects create significant impact by improving critical metrics or reducing major company costs. They don’t have to be complex—they just need to address high-impact areas directly.

Example: At Facebook, implementing a code formatter in the engineering workflow likely reduced hundreds (if not thousands) of hours spent reviewing code, only to put in nits about coding standards. Simple, right? But it moved the needle.

Needle-moving projects typically focus on:

• Reducing costs significantly.

• Increasing revenue or improving key business metrics.

• Saving time or resources at a large scale.

Treading Water Projects

Sometimes, a team is stuck treading water—barely managing tasks and not making forward progress. In these cases, the best projects focus on operational efficiency, reducing workload, and stabilizing processes.

System fix: Introduce processes that help the team consolidate efforts, complete more tasks, and reduce concurrent work until they can begin repaying debt (e.g., limiting work in progress).

“Tactically, the focus here is helping folks transition from a personal view of productivity to a team view.” – Will Larson

Example: When I’ve worked on these types of projects, the solution often involved simplifying the current infrastructure and focusing on the one or two critical blockers preventing progress. For instance, one team I collaborated with was consistently delayed because their SQL Server instance was too small. As a result, they spent excessive time managing processes and handling storage limitations instead of advancing meaningful work. In this case, the solution was to migrate to a cloud data warehouse to align with broader company goals. However, it could have also been to pause, migrate, and then move forward.

Quick Win Projects

When you’re new to a team or bringing on new hires, starting with a few quick wins can be highly effective. Small, early successes help establish trust and give you (or your team) more runway for larger, strategic projects down the line.

Examples:

• Running a simple analysis that answers a CEO's pressing question.

• Delivering a basic dashboard that helps the CFO track revenue trends.

Though they may not transform the business, quick wins create visibility, build relationships, and secure support for more impactful projects in the future.

Innovation Projects

Innovation projects often involve higher risk but can lead to significant breakthroughs—or, at the very least, keep your team engaged and motivated. While not every experiential idea will pay off, some room for creative exploration can be a good thing. In fact, a certain amount of resume-driven development can be beneficial, as it keeps engineers inspired, curious, and invested in their growth.

Obviously, you shouldn’t build out your entire data stack around innovation projects. However, if you can identify opportunities that have the potential to provide value and keep your data team excited (and you aren’t treading water), it’s worth leaving some wiggle room in your roadmap. The benefit goes beyond the possible business wins—it can also help lower turnover and give your team the space to stay creative and inspired.

Challenges You’ll Run Into Implementing

You’ve put together a solid project plan and a clear list of priorities—but let’s be honest, that’s rarely enough to move forward in the real world. Whether your company has 50 or 50,000 employees, there will always be challenges when delivering and implementing projects effectively.

For example, I was hired to build a data warehouse to centralize data across a company. However, due to security concerns, the engineering team refused to grant me access to extract data from their replica database. While I fully understood the need for data security, it was frustrating to be blocked from the very task I had been hired to solve.

When executing a data project, you’ll likely face several challenges—including internal politics. Here are a few other common hurdles:

Handling Shifting Priorities

I once attended a company town hall where leadership announced a strategic shift toward using big data for decision-making one year, and then the next year, it was to implement AI.

While both priorities made sense in their own right, the constant shifts felt like a rollercoaster—especially for the data team, which was left managing half-finished projects while new initiatives kept emerging. That’s a recipe for stalled progress and unfinished work.

If you find yourself in this situation, it’s essential to have open, honest conversations with your higher-ups. Clarify what can and can’t be accomplished with existing resources and highlight conflicts or blockers before they spiral out of control.

As I write this, many companies push for AI everything, often without the necessary limited data infrastructure or ML expertise. Some may have started foundational projects like building a data warehouse, only to abandon them mid-stream in favor of the next big initiative.

Avoiding Scope Creep

Scope creep is a challenge nearly every data leader, consultant, or solo data professional has faced. That’s if you remembered to define a scope at all. It often starts with small, seemingly harmless requests:

• “Can we add one more filter on this dashboard?”

• “I think we need to pull in one more column from the data source.”

Before you know it, a project meant to take a few weeks stretches out for months—or even a year.

Scope creep can be avoided by:

• Clearly defining “done” upfront. Set clear deliverables from the start.

• Resisting mid-project additions. Hold off on adding new features or changes until a future iteration.

Internal Politics

Some of the biggest blockers for projects often have nothing to do with technology—they stem from internal politics.

• A VP who had never heard about the project suddenly demands involvement because AI was mentioned.

• An engineering manager insists on owning the workflow because a small portion overlaps with their team’s responsibilities.

• A security team denies access to critical data sources without offering a workable alternative.

These situations can stall progress just as much as technical issues. Being proactive about stakeholder communication, securing buy-in early, and clearly defining ownership can help minimize these political roadblocks.

Execution Excellence: Delivering Successful Projects

Actually Deliver

Once you’ve identified the projects worth pursuing, it’s time to focus on execution. Delivering results goes beyond creating plans and talking about ideas—you have to take action and drive projects to completion.

In many companies, progress stalls despite good intentions. Why?

• Too many priorities competing for attention.

• Lack of clarity around goals and next steps.

• No clear project breakdown or defined timeline.

These gaps create confusion and slow progress. A project that stands out in my mind involved a client migrating SQL stored procedures. When I asked, “Which procedures still need to be migrated?”

No one knew.

“Ok, of the two we’ve discussed, what still needs to be migrated in them?”

Again, no one knew.

The project had no clear ownership, no defined plan, and no structure. We had to hit pause just to figure out where the work stood before moving forward.

To avoid this issue and actually deliver on your projects, here are the essentials.

Planning and Scoping

You can’t execute effectively without defining what in the world you’re trying to accomplish. Are you building a dashboard? Migrating data? Improving reporting? Spell out the project’s scope clearly.

• What tasks fall within the project?

• What’s not included?

• How will success be measured?

If the scope only exists in conversations with no formal documentation, expect delays and confusion. Defining the work upfront prevents scope creep and ensures the team stays on track.

Break Tasks Into Reasonable Sizes

Whether you’re migrating a database or developing a new dashboard, breaking tasks into smaller, clear steps makes the work easier to tackle. Telling someone, “Build a dashboard,” is vague—there’s a lot of work between point A and point B.

For example, if you’re developing a dashboard, you’ll need to:

• Identify data sources

• Confirm the data is accurate and usable

• Build data pipelines

• QA data pipelines

• Create a dashboard mock-up

• Review the mock-up with stakeholders

The approach I often use is working backward from the desired outcome, listing every step required to reach the final product.

Iterative Delivery

You don’t need to follow Agile or SCRUM methodologies perfectly, but incorporating iterative feedback is key. Checking in with stakeholders throughout the process ensures you’re on the right track and reduces the risk of having to redo your work.

For example, instead of waiting until a dashboard is fully built, you could:

• Share a basic report with key metrics.

• Confirm the metrics meet stakeholders’ needs—if they don’t find the numbers actionable or useful, then either you’re not reporting the right things, or they don’t need the dashboard.

• Build a mock-up with realistic sample data for feedback.

This approach allows for course corrections before you invest too much time building the final version.

Define “Done Done”

A common pitfall is failing to define what “done done” is—when a task or project is truly complete. Without a shared understanding, tasks tend to linger in a half-finished state.

• Is it when the dashboard is built?

• When the data is validated and live?

• When stakeholders confirm they can use it independently?

Clarifying what completion means upfront prevents teams from spinning their wheels indefinitely and helps everyone stay aligned on the finish line.

Execution isn’t just about working hard—it’s about working clearly and deliberately. Defining scope, breaking tasks down, gathering feedback, and clarifying completion standards will help your team move from planning to results more effectively.

Building the Business Case for a Data Project

You’ve worked hard to identify valuable projects and create a list of priorities. Now comes the final hurdle: securing buy-in.

Projects need a budget.

Projects need time and resources.

Projects need executive excitement and support!

So, how do you build a compelling case that convinces stakeholders to invest?

Build Credibility

Before asking for approval on a large-scale initiative, it’s important to establish credibility within your organization. Successfully completing smaller projects first can build trust and show you can follow through.

This isn’t just about numbers and quantification—it’s about being seen as reliable and capable. When you’ve already demonstrated impact, it’s easier to gain support for more ambitious projects. While data and projections matter, credibility often carries more weight than metrics alone.

Quantifying Value

Some projects make it easy to quantify value. For example, a cost-reduction initiative can be supported with clear calculations based on current expenses and estimated savings.

On the flip side, projects focused on calculating ROI, Revenue Impact, or long-term growth can be harder to measure because there are less known factors. In these cases, use a range of scenarios—best-case, mid-case, and worst-case—to present the potential impact. This helps decision-makers assess the opportunity while acknowledging uncertainty.

Risk Assessment

A solid business case doesn’t just highlight benefits—it also acknowledges potential risks.

• Implementation Risks: What could delay or block the project from being completed?

• Risks of Inaction: What could the company lose by not moving forward with this initiative?

Being upfront about risks adds transparency and strengthens your case by showing you’ve thought through challenges.

Gaining Executive Buy-In

Now, credibility and data alone won’t always seal the deal—you need to actively engage leadership.

This means packaging your case into a compelling narrative. Develop a pitch deck or report that guides decision-makers through the problem, the opportunity, and the path forward. Present a current state vs. future state story that makes the benefits clear and exciting.

Yes, numbers matter. But storytelling can be just as powerful. Use data to support your message, not overwhelm it. The goal is to leave executives both informed and inspired to take action.

Tactical bits of advice

Finding Cost Savings

If you’re hitting a wall on a project due to budget constraints, consider finding areas where the company could cut costs to free up resources for your project.

Trading Budget for Budget

If your company operates on a centralized budget model, perfect—other departments may have unused funds that could support your project. If another team benefits from the project’s outcome, approach their leadership and explain that the only barrier is the budget. They may be willing to share the cost—whether by covering a portion of a resource or funding a necessary tool—if they see the value in the project’s success.

Growing Into Data Leadership

Stepping into the role of a data leader goes beyond being the technical expert—it’s about becoming a strategic partner who truly understands and supports the business. What sets great data leaders apart is their ability to bridge the gap between data and business needs, ensuring their work drives real impact.

Remember, your role isn’t just about exploring the latest tech or building impressive models. It’s about figuring out what the business really needs, owning your work, and ensuring your efforts produce tangible results. Whether it’s by asking the right questions, building strong relationships, or consistently delivering value, your impact as a data leader comes from being someone who actively drives progress—not just executes tasks.

Chapter Summary

1. Think Like an Owner: If you want to grow quickly as a data leader, think like a business owner. Understand the company’s priorities, take full ownership of your work, and ensure your efforts align with the organization’s broader goals. Otherwise, you might soon find yourself doing work that no one really needed and acts more like an expensive paper weight.

2. Less is More: Focusing on fewer, high-impact projects rather than spreading your efforts across too many tasks leads to greater success and recognition. Quality and strategic impact outweigh sheer volume. Don’t get me wrong, early on, you’ll want to establish some quick wins. But as you mature as a leader and build up your credibility, you want to fix in a few larger and bigger bets.

3. Understand the Metrics That Impact Your Business: Finding valuable projects starts with understanding the business and its core metrics. We’ve discussed a few like comparable store sales and occupancy rates. Then you can start to identify what influences them. Knowing the numbers that matter helps you target work that moves the needle.

4. Keep Projects Moving Forward: Challenges like shifting priorities, lack of clarity, scope creep, and internal politics can slow progress. Staying proactive with clear communication, well-defined scopes, and consistent project management is essential to keep momentum.

5. Project Types: There are different categories of projects you may encounter as a data professional. Much of which will be dependent on both your ability as a leader. Here are the projects you’ll likely want to take on:

• Needle-Moving Projects: Directly impact critical business metrics or reduce significant costs.

• Treading Water Projects: Address operational blockers and help teams maintain functionality.

• Quick Wins: Build trust and credibility with stakeholders through simple, visible successes.

• Innovation Projects: Explore high-risk, high-reward opportunities to drive creativity and long-term value.

Questions for Reflection

Here are a few questions to ponder from this section.

• Do you know your business’s core metrics? If you’re not working at a company, think of a business you frequent, even a family-owned restaurant. What would be the core metrics that impact their top and bottom line? What analysis could you run to help them better understand those metrics, as well as how they could influence them?

• Have you worked on projects with little or no business impact? Reflect on why they were done. Could they have been avoided? Were there clearer ways to prioritize more valuable work?

• Have you experienced a project where progress stalled? What caused the slowdown? Were there steps you could have taken to improve clarity, ownership, or direction? What eventually got the project back on track?

Thanks as always for reading!