How to Get Analytic Infrastructure Buy-in
To successfully roll out a business-wide analytic infrastructure you have two paths:
Core Argument
To successfully roll out a business-wide analytic infrastructure you have two paths:
1. Top-Down Mandates
- Typically comes around because there is so much pain getting visibility into the business that leadership must focus internally to sort this out.
- Can also be triggered by extra scrutiny due to audits or compliance.
2. Critical Mass Acceptance
- This is like Cal Newport’s “Be So Good They Cannot Ignore You.”
- Enough people are on the same page that it becomes the de facto truth.
Why It Matters
The founder frames analytics engineering adoption as fundamentally a change management problem, not a technical one. You either need executive mandate (pain-driven) or grassroots momentum (quality-driven). The Cal Newport reference is telling — it suggests the founder’s preferred strategy is the second path: build something so good that adoption becomes inevitable.
This maps to real consulting patterns: some engagements start because the CEO demands better data visibility (top-down), while others succeed because a small team builds a dbt project that produces better answers than the legacy process, and it spreads organically (critical mass).