Abstract: 

Data-derived insights are essential for any business to be competitive. But how can you truly effect change with these insights? Too often, data science teams overly focus on the technical aspects of their work, not spending nearly enough time on the “decision-making” element that is crucial for driving real business value.

The missing component is found in "decision intelligence workflows": smart, user-friendly, recursive ops engines that present the right recommendations to the right decision-makers at the right times while automating decisions that require no human intervention. These workflows are powered by a “digital twin” of the decision-making process, simulating how, where, and when to put the insights generated by your data science team into action.

In this talk, we'll explore the critical role that decision intelligence workflows play in driving business value with data-derived insights. We'll discuss the building blocks of these workflows, from ML-based recommendations to user-friendly interfaces that facilitate action-taking, and best practices to influence your decision-makers to act. Join us to learn how to effect change and give your analytical outputs the best chance of driving measurable business value.

Bio: 

Joe Dery joined Western Governors University’s College of IT as the VP & Dean of Data Analytics in summer, 2022. At WGU, Joe is working to help more than 3,000 current analytics students learn how to effect change in their professional roles – surgically balancing a combination of mathematics, data management, programming, and business influence skills. Prior to joining academia full-time, Joe spent much of his corporate career working for EMC – and later, Dell Technologies – where he joined as a "hands-on-keyboard" Data Scientist in 2011. Joe went on to hold leadership positions in Dell’s Sales, Finance, and Supply Chain organizations driving efforts in Data Science, Business Intelligence, Digital Strategy, and Digital Transformation. Across these domains, Joe’s efforts touched a wide variety of business problems, including ML-driven sales quota allocations, sales forecasting & opportunity prioritization, customer cross-sell/whitespace targeting, addressable marketing opportunity sizing, sales territory optimization, supply chain planning optimization, data/analytics literacy training, and self-service BI. Building from his experiences, Joe is often invited to speak on the crucial role of decision intelligence frameworks, change management, and “improv” in bringing analytics solutions to life. Joe holds a Ph.D in Business Analytics & an M.S. in Marketing Analytics, both from Bentley University.