Evolving the D&A team toward a more proactive, product‑oriented model to unlock value
ALIGNING DATA & ANALYTICS TO STRATEGIC IMPERITIVES
THE BRIEF
As part of the transition towards a more adaptive operating model, Chorus set out to design a Data & Analytics (D&A) Centre of Excellence (CoE) to create a step-change in how data and analytics support decision-making and business outcomes.
The intent was to bring together D&A capabilities across the organisation into a consolidated CoE and enable several key shifts:
Moving to a model that accelerates delivery lead times, improves consistency of outputs, and provides timely, trusted information through clear processes and strong data governance.
In parallel, improve stakeholder engagement and establish transparent prioritisation mechanisms to ensure alignment and focus on the highest-value work.
For D&A practitioners, shifting from variable delivery patterns toward a predictable and scalable operating rhythm built on repeatable processes and robust governance foundations.
The aim was also to improve clarity in roles and responsibilities, foster proactive engagement with business stakeholders, and provide defined pathways for skill development and career progression- building confidence and capability across the community.
Chorus engaged X is Y to work with both the business user community and the D&A practice to understand what was working well, what needed improvement and then use this to propose a future state and roadmap that would leverage the strengths and address the weaknesses on both sides.
THE BENEFITS
The Chorus Capability Uplift project delivered a long list of benefits for both the D&A team and the business users with minimal disruption throughout the transition that currently continues.
Enablement benefits for the business
A clear point of contact to triage and prioritise data products: Each performance area (Market, Asset, Operations), now has a Data Product Lead who is the D&A Partner for that business area who they can work with to agree and prioritise the data product backlog and lift data literacy.
Clarity of roles and ownership: Chorus business users engaged in the process now have a clear understanding of the roles each person plays and where the lines of ownership are drawn. This enables all roles involved to be clear about their contribution to the process and therefore be more effective.
Trusted data products: Due to the increase in engagement, improvement in process and quality of the data product, business users now have much higher understanding and trust of the data product they helped build. This resulted in greater confidence in data products, enabling faster action and reduced reconciliation effort.
High quality, easy to use data products: Business users now have a much easier product to use and understand due to the implementation of a common design system and documented definitions.
Clarity of timelines: Now that all delivery is roadmapped, business users have a clear understanding of what the priorities are, when they can expect to have received them, and the trade offs involved if they change priority.
Enablement benefits for the for the D&A team
Consistent and continually improving best practice for all roles: Due to specialisation and ownership of the process flow for each role in the Chapters, each role has a common way of working and regular ceremony to share, refine and improve through lessons learnt in delivery.
Strengthened role clarity. With clear lines of ownership, the D&A team can focus purely on its craft and producing high quality data products as it releases multiple business functions back to the business.
Clear career paths: With everyone specialising in Chapters and X is Y’s assessment model and practitioner roadmaps, Chorus D&A practitioners now have a clear understanding of where they are at, and what they need to do to progress.
Manageable workload: Due to product roadmaps and agreed priorities, the D&A team can now allocate capacity and articulate capacity needs to ensure workloads are sustainable over the long term. This leads to less stress and improved workload transparency and reduced reliance on tactical work, which creates more sustainable data products.
Cost model optimisation: Chorus refined its cost‑capitalisation approach to better reflect the value of data assets for the work the D&A teams do. Due to X is Y’s expertise in this area, the Chorus D&A team were able to significantly enhance value by recognising the data assets that were being built.
By transforming their D&A team, roles, structures, and engagement model; Chorus now has a clear path ahead to becoming a data-driven business, with trusted information that can guide priorities and ensure precious resources are allocated to the right places at the right time… all backed by evidence.
Delivery Benefits for Chorus
In addition to the capability uplift achieved through practice-led enablement, the approach also delivered two high-impact data products with benefits of their own.
Electricity Cost data product: An operating cost area of strategic importance was selected for development as the first data product. This product consolidated cost-related data from multiple internal and external sources into a single, integrated view. As a result, teams had an initial data product and a future roadmap for how they can make precise, data-driven decisions to optimise operational expenditure with greater speed and confidence.
Market Performance Data Product: The next data product was focused in the market performance space, providing a unified view of market activity alongside sales coverage and performance. To achieve this, the team gathered user requirements through user story collection, aligned and validated business definitions, assessed data feasibility, and designed the target state data model. External data sources and Salesforce configurations were evaluated, and a set of actionable recommendations was delivered to guide completion.
The outcome was a clear roadmap for building a robust, integrated data product that enables Chorus to prioritise future efforts effectively, optimise resource allocation, and improve sales performance with a level of clarity not previously available.
WHAT WE DID
X is Y collaborated closely with Chorus over a series of workshops, employing design thinking and human centred design techniques to:
Understand current state
X is Y facilitated a series of workshops working alongside the D&A team to understand things that are working well, things that hold them back, how skills and effort is distributed, and current state of the key process flows required to deliver outcomes to the business.
X is Y also facilitated a series of workshops with representation from business users to understand things that are working well, things that hold them back, the experience they are having with what D&A produce and the current and future investment of time they are willing to commit to working with the D&A team
Co-design future state
X is Y synthesised the results of the discovery workshops to:
Identify the main themes that would form a series of improvement opportunities.
Generated a series of “How Might We” statements that informed the various areas of the future state that would need to be developed to solve the problems identified. For example: “How might we improve the quality and velocity of our delivery to increase our engagement with the business”.
X is Y then worked alongside D&A Leadership to co-design and agree a future state that would solve the problems identified including:
Principles that would guide what the will and won’t do, and where ownership lies.
The roles required and the structure they will sit in. This Includes Role Descriptions and Chapter (practice discipline) descriptions.
Changes in ways of working required.
The workflows that need to be developed and/or evolved including roles and responsibilities, collaboration points and handoffs.
The data-product portfolio that will meet the needs of the business.
The engagement model with the wider business community.
Develop the roadmap and transition plan
X is Y then developed a three year time horizon that demonstrated and outlined a multi‑year maturity roadmap showing how capability would continue to scale and deepen over time. This results in increasingly more valuable outcomes for business users built on a solid foundation.
How X is Y will work alongside Chorus to transition teams from the current state to the future state over time using its enablement framework “Watch One, Do One, Teach One”.
How the teams, leaders, and structures will ensure enduring and improving craft over time, as well as the reporting lines and coaching rituals.
Created a recruitment plan and supported the search, complementing Chorus’ internal recruitment efforts, to find a Head of Data & Analytics to lead the newly formed function.
Enablement through delivery
To ensure the target state is achieved and embedded, X is Y worked alongside an initial Chorus team in a pairing model to enable and empower the initial pilot squad through a prioritised product delivery cycle and support embedding the new practices”
X is Y ran multiple training and enablement sessions for each Chapter:
Data Product Leads, best practices in engaging with stakeholders, map the data product landscape, and prioritise data product features in a roadmap.
Data Delivery Leads, best practices in running agile delivery sprints; backlog, ceremonies, documentation.
Data Experience Designers, design systems, pretotyping & prototyping, user story ideation and understanding, UX testing.
Data Engineers, pipeline development, CI/CD, DQ testing.
Data Platform Engineers, architecture, connectivity.
Data Management, roles, engagement, backlog management.
X is Y supported and co-designed roadmaps for each Chapter to enable a clear understanding of the path toward improving their craft.
X is Y supported the recruitment, review and assessment of candidates for the Head of Data & Analytics role required to lead the team.
CONCLUSION
The designed CoE model has left Chorus positioned to enable both the business and the D&A team to work in partnership- driving faster, more confident decisions and unlocking greater value from data.
Client Quotes
"The X is Y team brought expertise, an infectious passion for all things data, and an engaging approach with our teams that focused on building our internal capability for our future. The team was a great fit, and have positioned us well to drive tangible business value from our data.” - Chris Duncan; Head of Technology Strategy & Architecture
"It has been great to work with the X is Y team. Their subject matter expertise, and collaborative approach was very much appreciated." - Indervir Singh; Head of Strategy & Enterprise Performance
