This is a 2 part blog with Ben Mangel. You can read his blog here!

Our second Data School project came round very quickly. It was as if I blinked and another week had gone by.

Robbin, the dad joke connoisseur, posted the project on Convo early Friday as DS32 all gathered together in the Orange room to read it (and maybe also to hyperventilate together). The task was simple enough: there were 8 topics on different tools we had learnt in the first two weeks of the Data School. We were to pick a topic and prepare to present it to the rest of the group. I waited for everyone else to pick first, partly because I did not want to take any topics anyone else wanted and partly because I just didn’t know which topic would be most interesting. The topic left was restructuring data, pivoting, crosstab and transpose. I was grateful for the opportunity to learn more about the topic I felt most weak in. A name from DSDE had already been added to the topic: Ben Mangel. I had seen the name before, on Convo. Ben had posted about his pass on the Alteryx Core exam the Wednesday before, after only a week and a half of DS. But what was his name doing here?

We all read the task more closely, the true nature of the task dawned on us. We wouldn't be working together. We wouldn’t be working alone either. We would be in teams of two with a member of DSDE3, who we had not met before. I was shooketh. A one-on-one task with someone I had never met before, coordinating over the phone/video call and prepare with a deadline of 3 hours, was unventured territory.

Regardless, we move. We push on and overcome. Luckily, I had previous DS’er James Charnley close-by and asked for his advice on the project as he had been through a similar project with DSDE2. He gave me the best advice he could have given – a literal make-or-break of the project: “Jump on a call straight away”.

I normally get nervous before a phone-call with someone I don’t know. It’s a weird quirk of mine; I seldom get nervous when the meet is in-person. And it’s not every day you have a call with someone from Germany, yet alone someone well-known for an impressive achievement. Those two facts combined were enough to spike my adrenalin. But as soon as the video connected, the project was off to a good start.

We didn’t start the project straight away. Instead, we gave each-other a mini-tour of where we were situated in our respective offices. We spoke about our backgrounds and how we found ourselves in the Data School. We also spoke about the Alteryx core exam and how he was able to pass so soon. And therein lies another key for success in these types of projects: before any work happened, we built a rapport.

We then planned what to present on Google Slides. Google Slides doesn’t have the easiest or prettiest interface, but we were able to see, in real time, the changes we were making and to plan together. We took turns to build out different parts of an Alteryx workflow and a Tableau Prep flow while swapping sharing screens over SPACEIN. Then took 30 minutes to work individually on screenshotting each part of each workflow and preparing the presentation. Finally, we spent some time before lunch, practicing our presentation. We spent all but 30 minutes (and some tea breaks) of those 3 hours on video call.

This was an exercise in international teamwork more than anything else. When on client side we may be working with international companies, with remote colleagues etc. Ben, or anyone else from DSDE, or DSNY, could become someone I work together with on a project for a real client. How much more likely is a good outcome if we have already practiced working together internationally.

I thoroughly enjoyed this project. Our presentation went well, and I learnt a lot. This was made all the easier by how well Ben and I shared the workload and collaborated on tasks.

Please check out Ben’s blog too. Can’t be a collaborative project without a collaborative blog!

TLDR: DS32 had a project teaming up with a member of DSDE3 to present on a Alteryx/Tableau tool. A tip for doing well on this type of project is to build a rapport and videocall from the start.