Most Important Skills For A Business Intelligence And Analytics Manager At Warner Bros Discovery
Gideon, a Manager of Business Intelligence & Analytics, highlights effective communication as the most crucial skill, emphasizing the need to "speak the language of the individual" when bridging the gap between business and engineering teams. This involves proactive project planning and anticipating future needs, further refined through careful communication practices like rereading messages to avoid misinterpretations and prioritizing brief phone calls for clarity over asynchronous communication.
Communication, Project Management, Data Analysis, Problem-Solving, Leadership
Advizer Information
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Job Title
Company
Undergrad
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Gideon Rosenthal
Manager, Business Intelligence & Analytics
Warner Bros. Discover
Duke, 2013
UCLA Anderson
Computer Science
Arts, Entertainment & Media
Data and Analytics
None Applicable
Video Highlights
1. Effective communication is crucial for bridging the gap between business and engineering teams, requiring the ability to tailor communication styles to different audiences.
2. Project planning and forward-thinking are essential for proactively addressing business challenges and anticipating future needs.
3. Improving communication involves meticulous rereading of messages to anticipate misinterpretations and utilizing phone calls for real-time clarification to minimize misunderstandings and context-switching.
Transcript
Question number four: What skills are most important for a job like yours?
The most important skill is effective communication. This is beneficial for most jobs, but especially crucial for analytics engineering managers and similar roles like product managers. These positions often involve being a liaison between different business sides, particularly bridging the gap between business needs and engineering capabilities.
You need to be able to speak the language of whomever you are talking to. When gathering business requirements, you must translate them into actionable engineering tasks. Conversely, when receiving information from analytics engineering, you need to distill complex data for executive stakeholders. These stakeholders may just want to know the key outcomes, so conveying what happened and what is most important is essential.
Beyond communication, project planning and forward-thinking are also vital. This means anticipating future business challenges and understanding what stakeholders will need in the coming weeks. By looking ahead, you can steer your work proactively rather than constantly playing catch-up.
Regarding becoming a skilled communicator, while there might be some innate ability, it's definitely a learnable skill. My primary recommendation is to be meticulous in written communication, like on Slack and email. Reread your messages, considering how they could be misinterpreted.
Imagine someone with no prior knowledge reading your message. Where might they get confused or misled? It might feel overly detailed or pedantic, but it's better to be safe than sorry. Being as specific as possible can prevent misunderstandings.
Another key aspect of improving communication is practice. The more you do something, the better you become. Additionally, I find that speaking directly with people is extremely helpful, even if it's just a quick five-minute phone call. This allows for real-time clarification and ensures understanding, unlike the potential for misinterpretation and context switching common in asynchronous communication platforms.
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