Don’t Bolt On Your Data Team Build Them In From the Start!
Are You Catching the Fallout of Bringing Your Data Team in Too Late?
Not long ago, I was leading a data team at a company going through a major transformation: integrating a new marketing platform and changing field structures in Salesforce. But here’s the thing—we weren’t part of the project team.
In fact, we only got involved three weeks before go-live.
And not because we were officially brought in…
But because I overheard the conversation during a cross-functional meeting.
Let me walk you through what happened and why it’s a warning signal for any business undergoing change.
The Fallout: What Almost Went Wrong
When I caught wind of the upcoming platform changes, alarm bells went off.
Salesforce fields were being renamed, restructured, or removed.
A new marketing platform was being integrated.
No one had evaluated the downstream impact on our data models and reporting.
Here’s what would have broken:
💥 Sales compensation reports — broken logic tied to legacy field structures
💥 Marketing attribution — missing or incorrect campaign IDs
💥 Product insights — disconnected and inaccurate due to changes in source data
It would have been a disaster. Leadership would have lost trust in the dashboards. Teams would make decisions on bad data. Recovery would be long and painful.
The Fire Drill We Could’ve Avoided
We immediately dropped everything.
Our data team went heads down for three weeks, mapping field-level changes, rebuilding pipelines, validating dashboards, and deploying emergency QA processes to ensure continuity in reporting.
We pulled it off. But it came at a cost:
High stress
Paused initiatives
Rushed changes that could introduce future risk
And the worst part? It was completely avoidable.
The Real Problem: Data as an Afterthought
Too many organizations treat data like a bolt-on. After the design is finalized. After the systems are chosen. After go-live is around the corner.
But every system change is a data change. And every data change can ripple through your entire reporting structure.
When you bring the data team in too late, you:
Risk breaking pipelines and dashboards
Delay critical business insights
Reduce trust in your data
Burn out your data team with unrealistic turnaround times
The Solution: Involve Your Data Team Early
To get the most value out of your data, involve your data team from day one. Not as a support team—but as a strategic stakeholder.
Here’s what that looks like:
Include them in project planning and architecture conversations
Provide visibility into field and schema changes
Scope time for pipeline and dashboard adjustments
Treat reporting as part of the product, not an afterthought
Good data strategy is proactive, not reactive.
What We Do at Gambill Data
At Gambill Data, we work with organizations to embed data thinking into every phase of transformation. Whether you're migrating to a new platform, revamping your CRM, or integrating new tools, we ensure your data pipelines and reporting are ready before you flip the switch.
No fire drills. No broken dashboards. Just clean, reliable insights when you need them.
📆 Planning a Transformation?
If you’re about to make changes to your platform, processes, or tools, ask yourself:
Has the data team reviewed the architecture?
Do they know about upcoming schema changes?
Are you budgeting time for reporting updates?
If the answer is no, let’s talk. A short planning session now could save you weeks of chaos later.
Ready to make your next transformation data-ready?
Book a free consultation or Contact us.