Introduction
Organizational readiness is top of mind for strategic leaders, especially those investing in Adobe Customer Journey Analytics (CJA) . How can they maximize value not just from CJA, but from their people? How can they transform while safeguarding data integrity and promoting sustainable, scalable analytics practices across the organization—all with the right mindset?
In this two-part series, we'll explore insights from Brian Au, a CJA subject matter expert, and Shaaz Nasir, the head of Adoption for Adobe Consulting Services. As organizations of all sizes implement Adobe Customer Journey Analytics (CJA), it's vital to grasp the complex interplay of ownership, roles, skills, responsibilities, and mindset within teams. The approach to managing and leveraging CJA varies significantly based on team size, requiring a nuanced understanding of different operational models. This first installment delves into diverse team structures for CJA operations, tailored for small, medium, and large organizations. It offers a comprehensive roadmap for organizations at every stage of growth.
We'll explore how team size shapes the structure, roles, and responsibilities within CJA administration and operations. From nimble small teams juggling multiple roles to specialized, large-scale departments with distinct areas of expertise, we'll highlight each model's unique advantages, challenges, and operational nuances. Through an analysis of required skills, team dynamics, and strategic focus areas, we aim to provide actionable insights and practical guidance for organizations of all sizes. We'll also explore how to collaborate directly with Adobe Consulting Services to co-deliver and delve deeper into your CJA optimization transformation.
Furthermore, we'll examine how CJA administration evolves with team size. This includes maintaining comprehensive CJA implementation documentation, coordinating user and power user groups, and managing interactions with Adobe support teams. We'll also explore how CJA governance adapts to different team sizes, ensuring data quality, compliance, and consistent analytics practices across the organization.
Our primary goal is to empower organizations to streamline and enhance their CJA workflows across various elements by putting people at the center of their transformation. This includes optimizing Connections, the foundation for data integration; refining Data Views, which shape how data is presented and analyzed; and Analytics Workspace Projects, where insights are derived and visualized. By fine-tuning these crucial elements, organizations can unlock the full potential of their analytics capabilities while implementing robust governance frameworks and maintaining efficient administrative protocols. This holistic approach not only maximizes the value derived from CJA but also safeguards data integrity and promotes sustainable, scalable analytics practices across the organization.
By examining these team structures, we provide a framework to help organizations identify the most suitable approach for their specific needs, resources, and growth stage. Our analysis also underscores the importance of building redundancy into key operational roles, ensuring team continuity during absences or transitions. Whether you're setting up a lean, efficient CJA team or restructuring your analytics department for enhanced CJA-centered performance, this two part series serves as a resource in your journey towards CJA workflow excellence and organizational readiness.
Customer Journey Analytics at a Small Organization: 2-3 CJA Involved Team Members
In smaller organizations, the CJA team typically adopts a lean and versatile structure, demonstrating adaptability to the organization’s evolving needs. This agile approach allows the team to quickly respond to changing priorities and market dynamics. The compact nature of the team facilitates rapid decision-making processes and fosters efficient communication among members, enabling them to stay closely aligned with organizational goals.
However, this structure also necessitates a high degree of versatility from team members, who must often assume multiple roles and responsibilities. This multifaceted approach not only enhances the team's overall efficiency but also provides team members with a comprehensive understanding of the entire CJA ecosystem within the organization. Moreover, smaller teams must forge strong partnerships with Adobe Experience Platform (AEP) data source providers. This collaboration ensures optimal data modeling design and flow, maximizing the value of their CJA implementation. Due to their limited size, these CJA teams often find themselves directly involved in AEP operations, gaining hands-on experience with data ingestion, schema design, and dataset configuration. This direct involvement not only enhances their understanding of the entire data pipeline but also allows them to quickly adapt and optimize the flow of data from AEP to CJA, ensuring a more efficient and effective analytics process.
- Roles:
- CJA Analyst/Administrator (1-2 Team Members)
- Business Stakeholder/Project Manager (1 Team Member)
- Skillsets:
- Strong analytical skills
- Proficiency in Adobe Analytics and CJA
- Basic understanding of data architecture
- Project management capabilities
- Ability to communicate insights effectively
- Responsibilities:
- Collaborate with stakeholders to define requirements
- Assist with AEP operations, including data ingestion, schema design, and dataset configuration to ensure optimal data flow into CJA
- Set up and maintain CJA Connections, Data Views, and Analysis Workspace projects
- Perform data analysis and create reports
- Manage data quality and troubleshoot issues
- Provide training and support to other team members
- Scope: In smaller organizations, the CJA team typically adopts a comprehensive approach, tackling multiple aspects of the business concurrently. Their broad oversight spans diverse areas including marketing analytics, product performance metrics, and executive-level reporting. This wide-ranging purview enables the team to cultivate a holistic understanding of the organization's data landscape, allowing them to spot cross-functional trends and opportunities that might otherwise go unnoticed. By collaborating closely with various departments—such as marketing, product development, and executive leadership—the CJA team evolves into a central hub for data-driven insights. This collaborative strategy not only bolsters the team's capacity to deliver valuable, context-rich analytics across different business functions but also nurtures a data-informed culture throughout the organization. The team's ability to synthesize information from diverse sources and deliver cohesive, actionable insights makes them invaluable in driving strategic decisions and operational improvements across the entire organization.
Customer Journey Analytics at a Medium Organization: 5-10 CJA Involved Team Members
As organizations grow, their CJA requirements become more complex. This evolution calls for a refined approach to team structure and resource allocation. In medium-sized organizations, the CJA team typically transforms, becoming more specialized while maintaining breadth. This shift strikes a balance between comprehensive analytics coverage and focused expertise development.
Medium-sized organizations often find themselves at a pivotal point in their analytics journey. They've outgrown the generalist approach of smaller teams but aren't yet large enough to justify highly specialized departments. This unique position allows them to allocate resources for deeper, more nuanced analyses while maintaining the agility of smaller teams. These organizations typically adopt a hybrid model that offers the best of both worlds: the ability to delve into specific areas while retaining a higher-level view of the organization's analytics landscape.
This transitional phase enables medium-sized organizations to develop centers of excellence within their CJA teams, focusing on areas like data quality, advanced visualization, or expanded integrations with CJA. Simultaneously, the team remains nimble, quickly adapting to changing business needs and providing comprehensive support across various units. This balanced approach empowers medium-sized organizations to leverage CJA more effectively, driving sophisticated, data-informed decisions while fostering the cross-functional collaboration characteristic of more agile teams.
- Roles:
- CJA Lead/Manager (1 Team Member)
- Senior CJA Analysts (2-3 Team Members)
- CJA Analysts (1-2 Team Members)
- Data Engineer/Data Architect (1 Team Member)
- Business Stakeholders/Project Managers/Analytics Product Managers (1-3 Team Members)
- Skillsets:
- Advanced analytical skills
- Expertise in Adobe Analytics and CJA
- Data engineering and ETL processes
- Statistical analysis, data modeling, and predictive analytics
- Project management and team leadership
- Stakeholder management and communication
- Responsibilities:
- Develop and implement CJA strategy
- Manage complex CJA Connections, Data Views, Analysis Workspace projects and workflows
- Perform advanced data analysis and create custom solutions
- Ensure data accuracy and implement data governance
- Provide training and mentorship to team members
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams to drive data-informed decisions
- Scope: Medium-sized organizations typically allocate increased resources towards specialized analyses tailored to specific data domains within their organization. This approach allows the CJA team to focus their efforts on particular business units or product lines, resulting in more in-depth insights and customized reporting. By concentrating on specific areas, these teams can develop a deeper understanding of the unique challenges and opportunities within each domain, leading to more targeted and actionable analytics. This specialized focus enables medium-sized organizations to strike a balance between the broad, generalist approach of smaller teams and the highly specialized departments found in larger organizations. Consequently, they can deliver more nuanced, context-specific insights while maintaining a holistic view of the organization’s overall analytics landscape.
Customer Journey Analytics at a Large Organization: 15-20 CJA Involved Team Members
Large enterprises require a sophisticated approach to CJA to navigate their complex data ecosystems and extract meaningful insights across diverse business units. Within these organizations, the CJA team typically evolves into a multi-domain entity with well-defined roles and responsibilities. This structured framework enables deeper analysis, facilitates advanced data management, and empowers the organization to drive strategic decision-making at an enterprise-wide scale.
In larger organizations, dedicated AEP teams often work alongside the CJA team. These AEP specialists manage the data foundation for CJA, handling tasks like data ingestion, schema design, identity resolution, and data governance. This separation allows the CJA team to focus on analysis and insights rather than data preparation, leading to more efficient workflows and higher-quality data.
In these large-scale environments, the AEP/CJA teams typically includes a diverse array of specialized roles, each contributing unique expertise to the overall analytics strategy:
- Data scientists who perform advanced statistical analysis and build predictive models
- Data architects who design optimal schema structures and data ingestion processes
- Data engineers who create and maintain robust data pipelines
- Business intelligence specialists or analytics engineers who optimize BI/presentation layer performance and create compelling data visualizations
- CJA specialists with deep expertise in leveraging the solution's full capabilities
The synergy among these roles creates a formidable analytical ecosystem. This collaborative framework enables the team to decipher complex customer journeys across multiple touchpoints, uncovering subtle patterns and trends. By harnessing diverse skill sets, the team can extract actionable insights from CJA data, transforming complex analytics into strategic recommendations that drive business impact. This approach enhances the organization's ability to understand and respond to customer needs while positioning the organization to make data-informed decisions that improve business performance.
Moreover, this structured approach fosters centers of excellence within the CJA team, promoting innovation and best practices across the organization. It enables the team to not only respond to current business needs but also proactively identify opportunities for leveraging CJA to drive competitive advantages. The ability to scale analytics efforts across multiple business units, regions, or product lines while maintaining consistency and quality is a key advantage of this robust team structure in large enterprises.
- Roles:
- Director (1 Team Member)
- CJA Managers (2-3 Team Members)
- Senior CJA Analysts (4-5 Team Members)
- CJA Analysts (3-4 Team Members)
- Data Engineers/Data Architects (2-3 Team Members)
- Data Scientists (1-2 Team Members)
- Business Intelligence Developers/Analytics Engineers (1-2 Team Members)
- Project Managers/Analytics Product Managers (1-2 Team Members)
- Skillsets:
- Strategic thinking and leadership
- Advanced CJA and AEP expertise
- Data science and machine learning
- Advanced data engineering and architecture
- Business intelligence and data visualization
- Change management and organizational alignment
- Cross-functional collaboration and communication
- Responsibilities:
- Develop and execute enterprise-wide CJA strategy
- Manage complex, multi-faceted CJA Connections, Data View implementations
- Conduct advanced analytics, predictive modeling, and machine learning initiatives
- Design and maintain robust data pipelines and integrations
- Create sophisticated Analysis Workspace Projects, dashboards, and self-service analytics applications
- Drive data literacy and adoption across the organization
- Align CJA initiatives with broader business objectives
- Ensure compliance with data privacy regulations
- Scope: Larger organizations have the resources to maintain specialized teams dedicated to various aspects of AEP & CJA implementation and management. These organizations typically structure their analytics departments with dedicated groups focusing on specific business units, geographical regions, or product lines. This specialized approach allows for deep, context-specific insights tailored to each area's unique needs and challenges. Moreover, these organizations often establish centralized teams responsible for overarching governance, ensuring consistent data quality and compliance across the organization. These central teams also manage the infrastructure supporting the CJA ecosystem, continuously optimizing performance and scalability. Additionally, they play a crucial role in driving innovation, exploring new CJA features and methodologies, and disseminating best practices across the organization. This multi-tiered approach enables large organizations to leverage CJA's full potential, balancing specialized, granular insights with enterprise-wide consistency and innovation.
Comparison Matrix: Team Sizes, Scope of Influence, and Considerations
| Team Model Aspect | Small (2-3 Team Members) | Medium (5-10 Team Members) | Large (15-20 Team Members) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scope of Influence | Broad, organization-wide | Focused on key business units | Specialized by function/unit |
| Depth of Analysis | General insights | Detailed analysis | Advanced, predictive analytics |
| Tool Utilization | Standard CJA features | Advanced CJA features | Full AEP & CJA |
| Data Governance | Basic | Structured | Comprehensive |
| Scalability | Limited | Moderate | High |
| Cross-functional Integration | High, by necessity | Moderate | Varies by team structure |
| Innovation Capacity | Limited | Moderate | High |
| Resource Allocation | Stretched | Balanced | Specialized |
| Training & Development | On-the-job | Structured programs | Comprehensive, ongoing |
Informing Customer Journey Analytics from a Business Requirements Standpoint
Regardless of team size, a critical responsibility of any CJA team is to shape the CJA implementation and ongoing strategy in alignment with business requirements. This process involves translating organizational needs into actionable analytics strategies, ensuring that CJA delivers value across all levels of the organization. The approach to this crucial function can vary significantly depending on the size and structure of the team.
- Small Teams (2-3 Team Members):
- Conduct regular meetings with stakeholders across departments
- Prioritize key business questions and align CJA setup accordingly
- Quickly adapt to changing business needs due to their agility
- Medium Teams (5-10 Team Members):
- Assign dedicated analysts to liaise with specific business units
- Develop a formal requirements gathering process
- Develop a comprehensive roadmap and prioritization framework for CJA enhancements that aligns with key business objectives and strategic plans
- Large Teams (15-20 Team Members):
- Establish a centralized requirements management system
- Form a cross-functional steering committee to oversee CJA initiatives
- Facilitate regular planning workshops with departments to identify and prioritize analytics needs
- Employ business analysts and CJA specialists to translate business requirements into technical specifications and deliver comprehensive analytics solutions
- Develop a governance framework to evaluate and approve new CJA initiatives and projects
Maintaining Customer Journey Analytics: Ongoing Upkeep and Support
Continuous upkeep and support are vital for ensuring the long-term success and effectiveness of a CJA implementation. Without proper maintenance, even the most well-designed analytics systems can become outdated or inefficient. Regular upkeep keeps the system running smoothly, while ongoing support ensures users can effectively harness CJA's capabilities to drive business insights. It's also crucial to monitor usage, ensuring compliance with guardrails and license entitlement limits.
- Small Teams (2-3 Team Members):
- Implement a rotating schedule for maintenance tasks
- Develop basic documentation for troubleshooting common issues
- Leverage Adobe's support resources to supplement internal capabilities
- Medium Teams (5-10 Team Members):
- Designate a dedicated support role or team
- Create a ticketing system for tracking and resolving issues
- Develop more comprehensive documentation and internal knowledge bases
- Conduct regular CJA health checks and optimization reviews
- Large Teams (15-20 Team Members):
- Establish a dedicated CJA operations team
- Implement advanced monitoring tools for proactive issue detection
- Develop automated testing and validation processes
- Create a center of excellence to standardize best practices and provide ongoing training
- Regularly audit and optimize AEP & CJA configurations for performance and accuracy
Conclusion
In conclusion, the optimal team structure for CJA administration and utilization hinges on three key factors: organization size, available resources, and specific business requirements. Each organizational size offers unique opportunities and challenges in effectively leveraging CJA. Smaller organizations often thrive with a team of versatile professionals who can juggle multiple roles, quickly adapting to changing needs and priorities. These agile teams swiftly implement CJA strategies that encompass the entire organization, fostering a holistic view of customer journeys.
In contrast, larger organizations can develop more specialized teams, enabling them to delve deeper into complex analytics and drive innovation at scale. By leveraging dedicated roles—such as data scientists, advanced analysts, and CJA domain specialists—these organizations uncover nuanced insights and implement sophisticated strategies across multiple business units or product areas. This specialization allows them to tackle intricate customer journey analyses, pushing the boundaries of CJA's capabilities.
However, regardless of organizational scale, two fundamental principles underpin successful CJA implementation. First, CJA initiatives must closely align with overarching business objectives. This alignment ensures that CJA-generated insights directly contribute to strategic decision-making and tangible business outcomes. Second, organizations must foster a data-informed culture that permeates all levels of the organization. This cultural shift empowers employees to leverage CJA insights in their daily decision-making, creating a more responsive and customer-centric organization.
To achieve and maintain success, CJA teams of all sizes must excel in two critical areas: requirements gathering and ongoing implementation maintenance. Requirements gathering involves thoroughly understanding business needs and translating them into actionable analytics strategies, ensuring that the CJA implementation remains relevant and valuable to all stakeholders. Concurrently, ongoing maintenance is crucial for the longevity and effectiveness of the CJA solution. Regular updates, optimizations, and support ensure that the system continues to deliver accurate, timely, and meaningful insights as the business evolves.
By effectively managing these areas, CJA teams of all sizes can achieve and sustain successful outcomes. This comprehensive approach ensures that the analytics solution not only delivers immediate value but also generates insights that evolve in harmony with the organization's changing needs and goals. As organizations navigate the complexities of customer journeys, a well-structured and adaptable CJA team becomes an indispensable asset, driving growth, innovation, and customer-centricity across the entire organization.
If you’re passionate to find out how exactly would this approach apply to your organization, you can partner with Adobe Consulting Services to jointly deliver a human centric program generating an aligned executive team, excited end users, and a clear value story. Reach out to Shaaz Nasir, Head of Adoption at snasir@adobe.com to start a conversation.
In part two of this series, we'll delve deeper into managing change from the human perspective of CJA implementation. We'll explore foundational frameworks and key dimensions of organizational readiness, providing valuable insights for teams of all sizes.
- A deeper dive into the human aspects of implementing CJA across different organization sizes
- Discussion of specific frameworks for managing change related to CJA adoption
- Detailed exploration of organizational readiness factors, such as team structure, skill sets, and cultural adaptability
- Strategies for overcoming resistance to change and fostering a data-informed culture
- Best practices for training and skill development to support successful CJA implementation
This continuation aligns with the comprehensive approach to CJA implementation discussed in the this first part of the series, focusing on the critical "people" aspect of change management.
