Incentives

If you hired a data person for your company and you paid them by the…

...lines of code, they could be incentivized to write lots of code, regardless of efficiency or readability.

…number of meetings they attended, they would be incentivized to schedule and attend lots of meetings, regardless of the purpose.

...dashboards delivered, they could be incentivized to use bulk generic templates to crank out as many as possible. Regardless of value or usefulness.

…emails sent, they would be incentivized to find dozens of people to emails every hour, regardless of the business value.

That sounds silly, you say?

Of course. You hired them to deliver business value to your company.

If a data consulting project was priced by the...

...number of phone calls one could be incentivized to schedule lots of phone calls, regardless of efficiency or readability.

...number of stories points delivered, one could be incentivized to build out extra backlog items, and inflate point estimations.

...project status reports sent, one could be incentivized to use bulk generic templates to crank out as many as possible. Regardless of value or usefulness.

...hour then one could be incentivized to find ways of extending the project, issue change requests, maintain inefficient systems, schedule lots of meetings etc.

Sounds silly? Of course. You hired them to deliver business value to your company.

There are always incentives baked into the price.

Why not buy something to ensure incentives are aligned for everyone?

It was good to see you today,

Sawyer

p.s. What does a data project look like where we align incentives? Hit reply or schedule a call. I’d love to talk more about it.