How to know if your data team is successful?

After asking data leaderswhat the purpose of a data team was, I asked one follow-up question:‘How do you know if you’re successful?’

This was almost universally followed by a heavy sigh. This is not a simple question.

We in data have never been great at measuring ourselves. Despite our role in helping others measure their success, we lack a standard set of metrics, or even a framework by which to measure our own.

“You’d think since we’re in the business of measuring things, we’d be great at measuring ourselves, but we’re not. We’re probably worse at measuring oursleves than we are anything else.”