Launching a Data Ambassador ProgramOffice Hours - April 2020
Q&A Chat
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Answer back live or in the Q&A
portal.
Presentation TemplateJanuary 2020 Update
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Agenda
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Define Your Program
● Identify & Gather your Ambassadors
● Enable the Ambassadors
● Support Channels
● Evangelize Looker
Ambassador Program Timeline
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Week 0 Week 1 Week 2 Week 3-6 Week 8 and on
Build Your Vision
● Decide on roles and responsibilities of ambassadors
● Create job description
Gather Ambassadors
● Set up consistent cadence for meeting with ambassador team
● Build agenda for meetings
Enable Ambassadors
● Complete Looker training
● Set up support channels for ambassadors and end users
Evangelize Looker
● Share success stories through appropriate communication channels and forums
Promote Ambassador Program
● Send job description out through communication channels
● What need is the ambassador program addressing?
● How many ambassadors will you need and in which areas of the business will they reside?
● How do the ambassadors and data teams support each other?
● What will the key responsibilities of an ambassador be?
Define your programGuiding Questions:
Define Your Ambassador Program GoalsGuiding Question: What need is the Ambassador Program addressing?
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“To create a data-driven culture is becoming critical in times of global
connectivity and data-driven organizations.” - Sciforce
Data-detached or data-driven: Where does your company fall on this scale if it lost access to its data? - Forbes, 2019
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“I was the primary point of contact for all of these coaches, so before long, too much of my days were spent answering questions, training, and making small tweaks and updates, and I knew I needed to figure something out to get my days back under control.”
POLL #1
Define your Ambassador Program Structure
Guiding Question: How many ambassadors will you need and in which areas of the business will they reside?
A data guru for the organizationBI Team = The Ambassador
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Layer in the gurusAs your company grows, an Ambassador Program becomes helpful.
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BI Team
Data Ambassadors
Broader Organization
As you grow, a Data Team guru can live in each business unit to best serve each department of the company.
Embed the gurus
Define the Relationship between Data Team & Ambassador(s)
Guiding Question: How do the ambassadors and data teams support each other?
●
Team Function
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BI Team
Data Ambassadors
Broader Organization
Training
Feedback
Define Key Responsibilities of your Ambassador(s)Guiding Question: What will the key responsibilities of an ambassador be?
Enable Collaborate Evangelize
General Goals of an Ambassador
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the business teams to leverage features and content built within Looker
with data and business teams on feedback, business logic, and team needs
new ways to operationalize data throughout business unit
Detailed Job Description of an AmbassadorThe Ambassador represents a business area/team within a company and acts as a subject matter expert in their area
● Onboards new users on their team with basic Looker training ● Answers questions from team members
● Strategize on defining business logic and definitions of KPIs
● Surfaces new ways for team to interact with data in everyday workflows
● Acts as a liaison between the analytics team and the business team
● Evangelize Looker usage throughout their business unit!
What about everyone else?
● Product/Engineering Team○ Focuses on data collection, movement (ETL), warehousing and
sharing data context● Analytics Team
○ Maintains the LookML model and focuses on governance and enablement.
● Business User○ Users get up to date, consistent, contextual answers and provide key
feedback
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Identify & Gather your AmbassadorsFind your champions and motivate them
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Ambassadors are data-hungry themselves.
Ambassadors are people who can effectively champion why building a data culture is important.
And who can interface well between data and technical teams because they understand the needs of both teams.
Identifying Ambassadors
"Finding champions is a bit like playing Whack-a-mole. Potential champions will pop up here and there and ask great questions, be proactive in getting access to data tools, and make recommendations to make their data more usable and understandable. But like in Whack-a-mole, they’ll go back to their daily routine without the appropriate incentives and opportunities to keep them out in the open."
- Zara Wells, Enterprise CSM
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● Can talk through complex calculations
● Help test reports to ensure that reported values align with old reporting and expectations for new reporting
● Makes sure and end users can understand what they are seeing
● Early access and training so that they could play around themselves.
● Help answer questions of others on their team
Identify Ambassadors via NominationPre Looker launch
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● Monitor top users via the User Activity dashboard
● Run custom reporting based on the System Activity Explores
Identify Ambassadors via System ActivityPost Looker launch
Identify Ambassadors via Call to Action
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● Promote the job opportunity● Description should be visible● Requirements clearly defined● Send an email to gauge interest● Create an application● Administer a survey to gauge best fit● Formalize as an internal job
Pre or Post Looker launch
POLL #2
Looker Training: Offers enablement opportunities with Looker experts
Career Development: Learn a new technology as well as develop leadership and mentorship skills
Enhanced Experience: Be a pioneer directly influencing data decisions at your organization
Network: Join a community of people from across your organization and the Looker community.
Motivations to become a Data Ambassador
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© 2020 Looker. All rights reserved. Confidential.
Growth, Learning, Promotions, Data Opportunities
“Not a single one of the 8 coaches ended the 6 month period with the same job. 2 were promoted to team leads, 2 were promoted to managers, and the other 4 were hired onto other teams in the company.” - Guild Education
❏ Build your vision statement: Build your mission, vision and values as
an ambassador group.
❏ Brainstorm Meeting Topics & Agendas: Product Updates, Ongoing
Projects, Tactical Planning, Sharing Success Stories
❏ Create Virtual Gathering Space for Updates: Slack channel, email
alias, wiki page
❏ Determine Meeting Cadence & Duration: May be more frequent or
longer meetings when launching
Gathering your Ambassadors
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Gather
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Enable your AmbassadorsSet your Data Champions up for success
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POLL #3
Ambassador Learning Path
AmbassadorLearning Path
Learn the basics Take ownership Build advanced skills
Consume Content Explore Data Create
ContentAd-hoc Analysis
Advanced Exploration
• Create table calculations
• Build custom fields
• Apply advanced and custom filters
• Utilize merged results sets
• Navigate to Saved Content
• Work with Dimensions and Measures
• Build and Save Reports
• Create Basic Visualizations
• Build useful dashboards
• Utilize visualization best practices
• Choose appropriate chart types
• Use color wisely
Learning Objectives:• Increase
personal data literacy
• Be able to present and explain data to others
Looker Resources for different Learning Styles
Looker Documentation
Reading examples and self teaching
Looker Education
Interactive exercises and
videos
Looker Community
Online forum to engage with Looker analysts and other Looker customers
Looker Events
Office HoursMeetUps
User GroupsJOIN conference to connect with
others
Ambassador Enablement → Advanced Curriculum
5
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Support Channels for UsersCreate various channels for Ambassadors to drive data culture
“A little empathy goes a long way!”
With any product, you want to:
● Remind people it exists and actively demonstrate to them how it makes their lives easier
● Understand frustrations of active and inactive users and fix them
● Create a community of users who can help and support each other
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Ambassador training for new end users
Live Training is engaging and provides great
opportunities for questions and discovery.
Video Training is a fantastic way to reach a large or dispersed audience
● Chat Channel: Create a place for questions and establish a go-to place for data questions○ Users can see questions & answers from each other○ Quick help and screenshots can be seen across the company to knowledge share
● Office Hours: Encourage insight sharing and hold regular Q&A sessions○ This is a place for business users to feel heard!○ Departments can bring up changes or updates they’d like to see○ Ambassadors can triage the requests and bring a clear and actionable request to the BI
Team
Connecting with your UsersKeep the lines of communication open
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POLL #4
Connecting with your Users
© L
ooke
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E-mail Newsletters, Announcements, Updates
Keep the end users informed
ReleasesTraining Opportunities
Q&A Office Hours
Recognition and Awards
Evangelize LookerSingle source of truth
● Looker/Analytics Certification
● Advanced Training or Programs to
encourage skilling up analytics career
● Workshops hosted by the BI Team
Recognize your Data Ambassadors
If someone new made a cool dashboard
Use System Activity to identify new top users
Give shout-outs on #slack and reward them with Looker swag
Giving out shouts and rewarding folks to use Looker will reinforce that they’re helping build a data culture!
Ambassadors Recognize theEnd Users
Shout Outs and AwardsIncentivize Adoption
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© 2020 Looker. All rights reserved. Confidential.
BI Team
Data Ambassadors
Broader Organization
Training
Feedback
Keep the Feedback Exchange Strong
“Data driven cultures result when
everyone can easily access and bring
data into conversations and make
meaningful decisions underscored by a
deeper and more complete view of
what is going on.”
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The main thing here, is that if your company is truly data driven, then having Looker chops makes you way more valuable within the company. It is a huge asset to be able to pull reports and make data driven decisions, and having that knowledge gives people increased job mobility. Additionally, as you train people, and then they move to other teams, the number of teams with Looker ambassadors grows and before long there are experts across the company.
- Guild Education Blog Post
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Q & A
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