The main important thing to keep in mind is that (from Building Analytics Teams):

We are not undertaking data and analytics projects to indulge our intellectual curiosity; we are doing so to drive change and improvement (p. 258)

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My favorite ref on the topic is from Benn Stancil, A method for measuring analytical work, as well as this from Abhi Sivasailam, both focusing on Time to reliable insight as the north star metric of a data team.