The Resonance Test 70: John Reardon of Liberty Mutual Insurance

To make the most of data, you need to understand that it requires more than an obvious linear process, with discrete handoffs and dashboards and such. It’s about properly viewing data in its living ecosystem, about seeing data as a *loop. * The data loop, in fact, is the central focus of our most recent episode of *The Resonance Test.* John Reardon, VP & Senior Director of Global Risk Solutions Technology at Liberty Mutual Insurance, mixes it up with Val Tsitlik, EPAM’s Head of Big Data Practice and VP of Technology Solutions. Also looped in: Dmitry Grinberg, Managing Principal of Technology Solutions at EPAM, who lobs some great questions at these two data-driven men. Reardon says that Liberty Mutual uses the data loop as a framework that “helps us shape our priorities and technical approaches, ensuring that we can realize incremental value and make it real along the way.” He then walks us through the key elements of the loop: unlocking data, making it accessible, providing “good, modern, self-service tooling whenever wherever possible,” and finally operationalizing all the insights the process produces. One of the great advantages, Tsitlik notes, of the data loop is that it focuses the business conversation: Once an organization starts talking about data loops, they stop talking about *data projects.* It’s a mindset that looks at the situation “holistically… as a continuous process,” one that involves “ingesting more data” and “providing more access to various customer users.” When they discuss how Liberty Mutual operationalized machine learning, Reardon says: “The more that we can build our models and our capabilities with a simple API approach, the more we can easily integrate those insights into different parts of our environment.” Reardon emphasizes building simple models and deploying and iterating quickly. Everyone agrees that culture change is important and can be challenging. He says: “You can easily understate or even miss, you know, the cultural aspect that's required to head down this path, and we spent a lot of time in our business group educating our leaders first.” But right now it’s time for *your* education. Enjoy the conversation. Host: Kenji Ross Engineer: Kyp Pilalas Producer: Ken Gordon