# How to Organize Analytics By:: [[Brian Heath]] 2022-11-11 There is much debate about whether to centralize or decentralize analytics teams within an organization. This debate largely misses the point and centers around poor communication. Communication is often not the root cause. If analyses are deemed dysfunctional within an organization, look not to how the teams are organized but to whom the analysts are beholden. Often the dysfunction of analytics is an indicator of organizational dysfunction. Sales doesn't get along with finance, who doesn't get along with technology, who doesn't get along with logistics, etc. This organizational dysfunction will propagate into data and analysis nearly instantaneously. As a support function, data and analytics can easily become weaponized. Furthermore, because data and analyses can be tortured to tell nearly any story, the war of who can tell the better story results in an analytics arms race of dysfunction and delusion. In my experience, many organizations and leaders do not realize, or at least openly acknowledge, that the dysfunction isn't about the data and analytics but about themselves. Why does this happen? Analysis is easy to point to because it often brings a tangible data result that is believed to be the truth. Whereas questioning a peer is perceived to be a much harder argument about belief, knowledge, and experience. This makes data and analysis an easy third-party target that people fight hard to keep on their side. If you value data and analytics, the analytics function could theoretically exist in many organizational constructs under the following conditions: 1. Analytics is accountable to the organization and not an individual function. 2. Analytics is incentivized to have good relationships with all organizational functions. 3. Analytics is responsible for improving organizational decision-making at all levels. If you are missing any of these elements, your data and analytics programs will continue to underperform. Alternatively, your organization may be perfectly fine with the suboptimal alignment as it provides a release valve for intra-organizational tension. Just know that the analysts are taking the heat for something outside their control. Maybe you can let them go to a conference in the tropics once a year as a thank you. #### Related Items [[Analytics]] [[Organizational Analytics]] [[The Dictatorship of Convention]] [[Management]] [[Most Analysts are Delusional]]