The Challenge of Being a Manager

Coffee Sessions #36 with Luigi Patruno of 2U, Luigi in Production Part 2.   

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// Abstract
Learning Voraciously: We talk a lot in the community about how to learn and upskill in an efficient way. Luigi provided great insight into how he applies certain principles to his learning practices. One tip he shared is to rigorously read and digest books. Luigi himself has used books to address his knowledge gaps in areas like product, finance, etc. I appreciated the emphasis on books. A lot of the reason we feel inundated by new learning resources is that they are online. Emphasizing books, which are often far higher-quality than blog posts, can slow things down and focus our learning.  

Leadership Patience: Lately, Luigi has been spending more time managing projects and the data science team at 2U. He shared a lot of his insights into how to manage data science and machine learning properly. One of the most important things he emphasized to us was his patient attitude towards solving problems important to leadership. Turning around organizations is hard work. It's slow, it takes energy, and it is a nonlinear process. As he has course-corrected at various times as a data science leader, Luigi has brought admirable patience to the task, which has helped him be more successful on the things that matter to the entire company.  

Communication Flows: It's easy to imagine Luigi as a great communicator, given his experience running MLInProduction.com. In our conversation, he showed us how he puts it to use in his management style. Luigi shared the importance of understanding how communication flows across an organization. Being aware of this is crucial to working on the right, most impactful things. Having a pulse on what different groups and leaders are thinking about can help you evaluate your impact as a team.

// Bio
Luigi Patruno is a Data Scientist focused on helping companies utilize machine learning to create competitive advantages for their business. As the Director of Data Science at 2U, Luigi leads the development of machine learning models and MLOps infrastructure for predicting student success outcomes across 2U’s portfolio of university partners. As the Founder of MLinProduction.com, Luigi creates and curates content to educate machine learning practitioners about best practices for running resilient machine learning systems in production. Luigi has consulted on data science and machine learning at Fortune 500 companies and start-ups and has taught graduate-level courses in Statistics and Big Data Engineering. He has an M.S. in Computer Science and a B.S. in Mathematics.

--------------- ✌️Connect With Us ✌️ -------------
Join our Slack community: https://go.mlops.community/slack
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Connect with Demetrios on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dpbrinkm/
Connect with Vishnu on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vrachakonda/
Connect with Luigi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luigipatruno91/

Timestamps:
[00:00] Introduction to Luigi Patruno
[01:12] Update about Luigi
[04:08] Luigi's transition
[07:18] Problem-focused
[11:00] New problem
[12:51] Rational platform strategy
[18:18] Bringing the learnings to the team
[20:57] Formulating and communicating vision
[25:40] Problem-driven mindset
[35:53] Organizational blind spots
[41:12] Continuous learning  
[42:46] "Default to reading."
[44:44] The Lindy effect
[46:20] "You'll fail less often on the easy problems."  
[46:25] Act upon reading
[51:48] Ethical implications of ML
[53:24] Wrap up