Abstract: 

The list of failed big data projects is long. They leave end-users, data analysts and data scientists frustrated with long lead times for changes. This presentation will illustrate how to make changes to big data, models, and visualizations quickly, with high quality, using the tools analytic teams love. We synthesize DevOps, Demming, and direct experience into the DataOps Manifesto.

To paraphrase an old saying: “It takes a village to get insights from data.” Data analysts, data scientists, and data engineers are already working in teams delivering insight and analysis, but how do you get the team to support experimentation and insight delivery without ending up failing? Christopher Bergh presents the seven shocking steps to get these groups of people working together. These seven steps contain practical, doable steps that can help you achieve data agility.

After looking at trends in analytics and a brief review of Agile, Christopher outlines the steps to apply DevOps techniques from software development to create an Agile analytics operations environment, including how to add tests, modularize and containerize, do branching and merging, use multiple environments, parameterize your process, use simple storage, and use multiple workflows deploy to production with W. Edwards Deming efficiency. They also explain why “don’t be a hero” should be the motto of analytic teams—emphasizing that while being a hero can feel good, it is not the path to success for individuals in analytic teams.
Christopher’s goal is to teach analytic teams how to deliver business value quickly and with high quality. They illustrate how to apply Agile processes to your department. However, a process is not enough. Walking through the seven shocking steps will demonstrate how to create a technical environment that truly enables speed and quality by supporting DataOps.

Bio: 

Christopher Bergh is a Founder and Head Chef at DataKitchen. Chris has more than 20 years of research, engineering, analytics, and executive management experience. Previously, Chris was Regional Vice President in the Revenue Management Intelligence group in Model N. Before Model N, Chris was COO of LeapFrogRx and analytics software and service provider. Chris led the acquisition of LeapFrogRx by Model N in January 2012. Prior to LeapFrogRx Chris was CTO and VP of Product Management of MarketSoft (now part of IBM) an Enterprise Marketing Management software vendor. Prior to that, Chris developed Microsoft Passport, the predecessor to Windows Live ID, a distributed authentication system used by 100s of Millions of users today. He was awarded a US Patent for his work on that project. Before joining Microsoft, he led the technical architecture and implementation of Firefly Passport, an early leader in Internet Personalization and Privacy. Microsoft subsequently acquired Firefly. Chris led the development of the first travel-related ecommerce web site at NetMarket. Chris began his career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory and NASA Ames Research Center. There he created software and algorithms that provided aircraft arrival optimization assistance to Air Traffic Controllers at several major airports in the United States.
Chris served as a Peace Corps Volunteer Math Teacher in Botswana, Africa. Chris has an M.S. from Columbia University and a B.S. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is an avid cyclist, hiker, reader, and father of two teenagers.