No, not unmanned aircraft flying us around the world! A small project to assess the value of a bigger data project and to stimulate interest and eventually strong support for the project.

Why a pilot project before you go into a full blown project you know you will get benefit from? Because most big data projects take longer, cost a heck of lot more than planned and tell you lots of things you didn’t really need to know while answering some of the big questions but sometimes not answering the question that should have been asked in the first place. (See one of my most popular blogs on this issue – A strategy is but a hypothesis)

My colleague, Dr Andrew Pratley, has a saying “It’s not about big data, it’s about your data.”

So do yourself a favour. Before you go down the path of your next data project, think about the question you could be answering and experiment with a pilot. You might find you can answer the question without a major data project. Using data close at hand or that can easily be sourced. True.

While I have you, I am running free breakfasts this year on what it takes to be a persuasive adviser. Just a small group of 10 or so of us. Some of me giving my views and plenty of the room sharing their challenges and how they go about being persuasive. If you would like to come to one, please register your interest here.