I started data projects with 3 silly questions.

Today, I skip all of them:

❌ “Which BI tool should we use?”
❌ “Should we build a real-time pipeline?”
❌ “What should our data architecture look like?”

The result:

I built a dashboard factory and lost trust with senior management.

That’s why I now use the same 5-step process to kickstart every data project.

Simple.
Repeatable.
Business-first.

1️⃣ Understand the game

• Where is the company today?
• Where do we want to be in 12 months?
• Which initiatives already exist?

Too many teams build pipelines before they understand the business.

2️⃣ Map the stakeholders

• Who makes decisions?
• What data do they need?
• What tools do they already use?

Reality check: many “strategies” fail because people ignore how stakeholders actually work.

3️⃣ Interview decision makers

My go-to question:
“What decision do you regularly make where you wish you had better data?”

This reveals the real use cases.

4️⃣ Build a KPI–Dimension Map

Now we translate interviews into a build spec:

• Which KPIs matter
• Which dimensions explain them
• Where data gaps exist

5️⃣ Stakeholder sign-off

Before building anything:

• Align on the use case
• Confirm data gaps
• Validate stakeholders will actually act on the insights

No sign-off → no build.

This process prevents the classic outcome:

Beautiful dashboards.
Zero decisions improved.