Effective data scientists are not a support function. Instead, data science should be a strategic leader within a firm, driving better decision-making through data. As an individual contributor, you should feel empowered to conceive ideas for a project, initiative, or maybe an entirely new business line. However, to see these ideas come to fruition, you will need to make a successful internal pitch. Here’s how.
Get Immediate Feedback
Run your idea by a trusted peer as soon as possible. Do they grok the concept? What questions do they have? Are they excited? Confused? A bit of both? You want to get a sense-check on whether your idea is viable.
If your friend doesn’t see the vision, it’s not to say your idea is dead in the water. However, it’s a major warning sign telling you to step back and rethink your pitch. Is something unclear about the way you are explaining the concept? If you find the idea hard to convey, perhaps a prototype or mock-up will be needed in order to bring the concept to life.
Find Your Advocate
Especially at larger firms, you’ll need to get someone important on your side. This person will function as a conduit to decision-makers with the power to authorize your project and set it into motion. The advocate will know who to talk to (and when), as well as help get you in the right meeting to make your pitch. Oftentimes your advocate will be your manager.
Once you’ve identified a potential advocate, your author recommends putting a 30 minute meeting on their calendar. At this stage your project should have a document - even if it’s just a one pager explaining the idea - that you can share as a pre-read. Use the meeting as a way to go over the advocate’s feedback and make sure they understand and support what you are proposing.
Benefits And Costs
After refining the idea with your advocate, the next stage should be to pitch the concept to a key decision-maker. Perhaps the CEO, CTO, a VP, or a director. These folks will want to know two things: What am I getting, and what is it going to cost me?
The benefits of your initiative should be obvious (to you), but make sure to explain them in terms executives can understand. Namely, you will likely want to estimate a concrete revenue impact to the firm. For instance, the project is expected to generated $1M in incremental revenue over the next 2 years. Such an estimation is an inexact science, but the benefit needs to be significant enough that the project is worth executing. Also, try to align your initiative with the company’s overall business strategy - executives are unlikely to support a project that is a complete departure from what the firm is already working on.
Cost is also important to consider. Think through what resources your project will need to be successful. Perhaps you expect it will take 12 weeks of data science input, plus 6 weeks from a software engineer. Try to map out the tasks required, along with corresponding time estimates. Does your company already have the right people on-hand, or will you need to hire specifically for the job? If you are resourcing internally, will you need to set aside other initiatives in order to proceed with this one?
When pitching to executives, spend the first part of your presentation getting them excited about the project - why is it such a great idea? Once executives are nodding their heads in agreement, you can broach the resources required to get it done. You want to walk out of the meeting with full buy-in, and authorization to get started.
Time Your Pitch
Especially at larger companies, budgeting and resourcing tends to be done on fairly strict timelines. For instance, hiring headcount for Q1 might need to be finalized by mid Q4 of the prior year. Likewise, OKRs are often decided a month or two in advance. For this reason, you should get your pitch in front of decision-makers early enough that they can actually put the project into motion within a reasonable time horizon.
Achieve Quick Wins
Congratulations - you’ve found your advocate, presented your idea, and gotten the go-ahead. What next? Especially for longer term initiatives, you should think about how to get quick wins.
Executives will want to see progress reasonably quickly. Furthermore, by showcasing initial victories, you maintain enthusiasm for your idea and keep morale up. A quick win might be completing an initial prototype, hiring a key team member, or launching your first experiment. As a rule of thumb, aim to achieve such a victory within 2 months of starting the initiative.