What is a critical friend?
- Typical Data Science initiatives involve 1-2 people working on the project.
- For each project undertaken by a single team member a critical friend is assigned.
- For group projects a critical friend is not mandatory but is advised. Where not allocated, group members must inherit the responsibilities of a critical friend through peer review.
- A critical friend reviews the problem definition, business understanding and outputs.
- The critical friend provides a fresh perspective and offers the opportunity to catch issues that are overlooked by the team. - They can also attend meetings, check documents and provide extra support and guidance throughout the initiative.
Towards the end of an initiative ask other team members to review the output.
Assigning a critical friend
- Assign a critical friend as early as possible.
- Critical friends are assigned by the project members or the Data Science Lead.
- The Data Science Lead knows who is available and has valuable knowledge related to the upcoming project.
- Ideally, a critical friend should have prior experience with similar data or techniques.
- If you are an area expert, you can choose a new team member as the critical friend so they can gain experience.
Working with your critical friend
- The critical friend will help by offering more insight and reviewing the project.
- Regularly meet with the critical friend to keep them updated.
- Assign work to review in small increments rather than all at once.
- Respect the critical friend’s diary and provide plenty of notice for work to be completed.