Eight ways to convince your team to try a new analytics tool

Over our careers, we’re likely to join numerous companies and work across a multitude of teams. And on each of these teams, we’re likely to experience and utilize a dozen of different processes and software to accomplish our goals. It’s a fairly common experience to join a team or have been on a team for a long time and come to the realization that you either a) need an analytics tool, or b) (more often these days) need a better analytics tool. And as many of you will know, it can be a huge challenge to acquire a new tool, let alone simply get your team to adopt it.

Below, I’ll outline eight ways you can influence your team to try something new.

Be transparent that you want to try something different

It’s easy to just push problems under the rug and “deal with them later,” but one of the most important aspects of getting people to join you on a mission is to be transparent about what you want to do. As leaders and team members in our organizations, being open and communicative about the problems in our current state of operations is the first step to actually changing it. So if you find yourself wanting to try or do something new, just be honest about it and share it with your colleagues.

Solve a meaningful problem your teams face

We often run into situations where our teams are faced with a problem that we know can be solved if we just sat down and faced it. Oftentimes our best course of action when trying to convince people to do something is to give them a meaningful reason to do so. And few things are as meaningful as a solution to a real problem.  In analytics, it’s common to have problems that just need the right tool (and just the right person) with the drive to do something about it. So if you find yourself on the fence about a new tool, try it out first, solve a problem, and then share your solution.

Build something interactive and dynamic

Growing up, all of us likely heard about the different learning styles. Now while there is no credible evidence for these styles being real (hate to break the news,) it’s safe to say that people learn better when they have something they can interact with themselves. Building something your team can actually see, touch, and interact with is one of the best ways to get buy-in for how your analytics tool can impact the things they are responsible for. One of our best tips for trying something new is building with UI or Control elements so your team can manipulate the data they see on their own.

Set up a regular cadence to talk about your problem

When you take the time to actually describe a problem, it’s almost never enough of a push to move the needle on getting a new analytics tool—or really any tool for that matter. It’s basic psychology that people need to be convinced over time using a variety of strategies, and one of the best ways to ensure these conversations happen is to have regular meetings across stakeholders involved to diagnose and solve whatever problem you are facing. Some teams call them working groups, committees, tiger teams, etc.  The name matters less than the simple idea that people brought together to focus on a single problem, on a regular basis, are more likely to solve and address it than one person on their own.

Craft a compelling story about why

Legendary author Kurt Vonegate once gave an excellent talk on the structure of stories. The basic premise behind his lecture is that most stories follow some combination of events that either start or end across the Good Fortune or Bad Fortune line. There’s no way to accurately describe the nuance of his arguments in a single paragraph, or even a few paragraphs. But the important take away as it relates to convincing your team to try something new is that having a story can be an essential selling tool for bringing others to your side. Starting from, “we are here and have no analytics,” or “We have analytics but it’s not doing what we need,” and building from there using some of the other recommendations in this post can be a compelling way to get your team and your leadership on your side.

Invite them to try the tool you’re interested in

This one is maybe the most simple of all. It involves little conversation or discussion. No presentations or debates. One of the best tactics in the world is to just invite someone to “see it for themselves”. This one is easy, so enough said.

Collaborate on something together, at the same time

I’ve tried our best not to overly plug Sigma, but I’lll make an exception to that rule here. One of the best things about Sigma is your ability to collaborate simultaneously with other people on your team on a single shared workbook. While I won't drag or name names here on the tools that can’t do that, but I’ll say it’s one of the best ways to do shared collaboration with the people on your team who can use it the most.

Back it all up with facts and figures

‍At the end of the day, in order to make intelligent data-driven decisions, we need to have firm facts and figures to back up our assumptions. When deciding between a new tool and an existing one, it’s important to benchmark the key metrics behind the decision, like: how much does it cost, how much will it cost, how much improvement can it provide to key metrics like analytics requests, time to insight, etc. 
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All of these play an essential role in how we can communicate and convince our colleagues to try or do something differently. When it comes down to it, everyone has different needs, but if you can solve a problem and communicate it in the best possible way, your chances of getting everyone on the same page are significantly better.