When we realised there is a different way to deliver analytics and BI

Before Aginic ever existed, Brett and I were developing our craft at one of the big 4 accounting firms. Back then data projects were big and gnarly. People thought they could design and build a data platform like they were setting out to build a bridge – come up with some grand design, draw up a massive specification, and blindly build for a year or two. There was little consultation with the business folk (what did they know about databases!?!) and very little room to modify initial plans – you don’t want to disrupt progress.

Sitting back and taking this all in, watching big projects fail and huge amounts of investment resulting in very little output made us think: Why does it have to be so hard? Analytical projects aren’t like building a bridge between two fixed points. They are a journey of discovery, a bridge to a place that is currently unknown. We naturally approached analytical problems by breaking them down into bite sized chunks, we coupled this with modern analytical tool sets that allowed us to process these ‘chunks’ rapidly and also iterate on the solution quickly. What we were actually doing (unbeknownst to us at the time) was applying agile principles to the problem. 

This thinking drove a new approach, we would sit with clients and use data to work through their business problems, right in front of them, in hours, not days or weeks. Pretty soon we knew we were onto something. Our team within the firm grew to 10 people and things were getting serious. The problem was that innovating and growing within a big bureaucratic beast was impossible. We were never going to be able to continue to innovate! Trying new technologies and ways of working wasn’t supported. It was time to jump ship.

Aginic was a culmination of those years experimenting, and challenging the status quo to find a better way. We intuitively adopted the agile principles and applied them to the way we work. We were implementing agile analytics, so what do we call it? Let’s mash up agile and analytics and make a name…Aginic.