If you watched “The Karate Kid” in the ’80s… wait a second, that sounds stupid. If you were over the age of 7 during the ’80s, you watched “The Karate Kid.” If you didn’t, stop reading this immediately and go watch the movie (I’ll wait).
That movie was my first exposure to a Dojo, the Cobra Kai Dojo to be exact, and this is what I discovered. The Dojo is a place for learning. It’s a place for focus. It’s a place to build muscle memory through repetition and applied learning. All of those things can easily be lifted out of the martial arts world and applied to real-world settings. At Hard Yards, we have co-opted that same concept to help clients build muscle memory.
The Hard Yards Data Dojo is an immersive 5-day experience. Through the week, you will uncover the relationship between enterprise architectures and enhanced product development. You will learn to read, write, and communicate data in context, including an understanding of data sources and constructs, analytical methods, and applied techniques. And just like a martial arts dojo, the Hard Yards Data Dojo emphasizes “learning by doing." We leverage your real data to showcase best practices of data understanding, data preparation, and modeling to enhance decision-making.
There are, however, some things that differentiate the Hard Yards Data Dojo from a traditional martial arts dojo:
We do not make you wear a karate outfit, which I’ve learned is called a “gi” (rhymes w/ “me”) though it would be cool if you did.
We do not make you wear a headband, but again, super cool if you did.
No matter how intense our discussions get, we will never wipe the blood off your nose and ask you to “sweep the leg” of an injured fellow data dojo participant. Never.
What we will do is make you do is think critically about the role data plays in your organization. We will push you to understand Little’s Law and its relationship to cycle time, throughput, and work in progress. We will push you to build cumulative flow diagrams, cycle time scatterplots, and teach you how to forecast the completion of features with Monte Carlo simulations. We will push you to export data from your organization’s Agile software toolset and learn how to import it into BI tools to build decision-making dashboards.
Just like martial arts, it takes commitment - it is not something that can be done in a day. It takes application, you bring your own data. And it takes muscle memory. You will not walk out a “black belt” in data analytics after 5 days, but you should be equipped with a toolset that allows your inner tree of data mastery to bloom. Because as Mr. Miyagi reminded us in The Karate Kid: "Inside You Have Strong Root. No Need Nothing Except What Inside You To Grow."
Come find your strong data roots in the Hard Yards Data Dojo. And bring your headband.