Henrik Kniberg has this great cartoon about a man hacking away at a tree with an axe, saying, “Can’t you see I’m busy?” He’s saying it to a person next to him who tries to hand him a chainsaw.
For whatever reason, I’ve seen the same problem way more often in data teams than in software teams. Maybe data teams are scared to develop a “real tool,” or maybe we don’t just practice enough.
Whatever the reason, I found the following process to solve the problem for the teams I was on:
If you have to solve a problem once, do it.
If you have to do it a second time, automate a little part of it.
If you have to do it a third time, automate it as much as you can.
You might end up with a few bash scripts, a couple of lines of Python, or simply templated SQL (hey dbt ;)). Whatever it is you get, I’ve yet to see nothing emerge from it, and sometimes, you find the chainsaw you thought you were too busy to build.
