## Metadata - Author: [[Benn stancil|Benn Stancil]] - Full Title:: Disband the Analytics Team - Category:: #🗞️Articles - URL:: https://benn.substack.com/p/disband-the-analytics-team - Finished date:: [[2024-03-22]] ## Highlights > If my life savings were on the line, my answer is that our [hope is a mistake](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBHPhD7YKj4), and most analysts will never escape their current lot. As we’ve talked about many times before, analytics might be an inherently flawed enterprise. Data is [fundamentally messy](https://benn.substack.com/p/will-we-ever-have-clean-data) and [fundamentally biased](https://benn.substack.com/p/tilt-and-tilted). Turning this data into useful information requires [rare analytical skills](https://benn.substack.com/p/the-technical-pay-gap); turning information into better business results requires [courage](https://benn.substack.com/p/does-data-make-us-cowards) and [a knack for persuasion](https://benn.substack.com/p/the-case-for-being-biased). Unless we can teach these skills at scale, which [we probably cannot](https://benn.substack.com/p/the-product-is-the-process), there will be [little demand](https://benn.substack.com/p/data-teams-product-market-fit) for the everyday analytics team’s work, and [little advantage](https://benn.substack.com/p/do-data-driven-companies-win) for the everyday company to invest in analytics. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hskpacz2zqqtne2d2afh7rx5)) > The average company may never be able to make better decisions by hiring a team of average analysts. We can [make dashboards](https://benn.substack.com/p/data-is-for-dashboards) and be [operational accountants](https://benn.substack.com/p/the-end-of-our-purple-era). But the fun, exploratory, “valuable” work may always be an indulgent, empty dessert, and never the entrée we want it to be. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hskpavv9xry2wvy9ephy7fqa)) > One obvious answer is to stop doing the Ponzi scheme. Dissolve the analytics team. Trade in our big promises for something smaller. Instead of getting fired, take a reduced sentence: Twenty years to life of building reports and maintaining operational infrastructure. Become more like IT or HR—invaluable components in the corporate machinery, but with fewer delusions of grandeur ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hskpedpfmjt2nensccbye4q0))