Choose Your Own Data Adventure
A perfect way to bridge business & data engagement
Welcome to Barry Panayi's Choose Your Own Data Adventure!
Every data leader makes difficult decisions every day. Most don’t feel dramatic in the moment, but many of them shape culture, trust and outcomes long after they’re made.
Experience a genuinely innovative way to close the Data-Business gap and get teams talking and working closer than ever before!
,,
The ultimate experiential learning tool for data leaders at all levels.
It gets you to focus on the intangibles and cultural blind spots that can derail success.
– Group Chief Data & AI Officer [Media industry]
,,
Provides a uniquely fresh, engaging and direct insight to the real challenges and dilemmas data leaders are facing today.
A great interactive training tool for data teams.
– Head of Data [Financial Services]
What is Choose Your Own Data Adventure?
Choose Your Own Data Adventure is an immersive exercise delivered as an interactive workshop for greatest impact.
Delve into the reality of the grey areas of data leadership and decision making as you attempt to guide your new company through it’s Data or AI awakening.
The adventure will challenge how to balance internal stakeholder needs, with customer expectations without losing control of your creation, creating internal headaches, or running up a massive bill.
It’s a fun and empowering way to get your data and non-data leadership teams to work together and understand the challenges both data and commercial leaders face every day.
What do you get by going on the adventure?
We’ll set up and run a guided 2-hour or half-day workshop, taking your teams on an adventure of decision making, collaboration, negotiation and (hopefully) fun!
In a workshop, you’ll also get:
- A tailored event theme and structure to be most relevant to your team(s) and desired outcomes for the session.
- Guides to support your team(s) through the twists and turns of the your adventure.
- A complete summary of the group’s discussions and outcomes. We can even dive into real action plans to move learnings into practical application for your team or organisation.
Why do a workshop with us?
Ortecha is the exclusive licensed partner of Choose Your Own Data Adventure, working with Barry to deliver workshops around the material, and develop future editions in the series.
- We have intimate knowledge of the material, so can guide your teams through the adventure.
- Our facilitators act as feedback points to you throughout and/or after the session, offering feedback on how individuals and teams interacted – informing your future culture & engagement work.
- We ensure everyone has a voice throughout the session and can contribute and challenge.
We can even help discover your future data & AI leaders!
,,
It’s a great reflection on how different choices about how to work with data can lead to very different outcomes, and it reminds us to be more conscious to not only focus on short-term relief, but on long-term success.
I can only recommend everyone to join Barry’s data adventure.
– Data & AI Strategy Director [Technology]
,,
Data and AI is one of the most complex discussions and top of mind for everyone – but the problem is that building a data strategy is not easy and there is no ‘one size fits all’.
Choose Your Own Data Adventure is a fun and engaging way to get teams together and bring to life the data transformation.
– Chief Information Officer [Manufacturing]
How Choose Your Own Data Adventure was born
Back in March of 2025, Barry Panayi, former CDO at John Lewis Partnership and Lloyd’s Banking Group, did something bold.
At one of the biggest conferences for data leaders in Europe, he was asked to deliver a presentation on data operating models. But rather than play it safe and present a PowerPoint on best practices, he stood up and shared things he’d got wrong.
And in doing so, he could have exposed himself to criticism.
But what actually happened was he got a hundred-odd CDOs to stop talking about everything they’d got right and to start sharing what they also had got wrong and how they could work together to improve things.
He broke down barriers and genuinely changed people’s perceptions.
What he created to deliver at that conference was an adventure. An adventure that every individual in that room could embark upon and choose their own path.
Something that empowered people to think about their own experiences and evaluate the impact of the reality of imperfect decision making in leadership.
Why Ortecha & Barry collaborate
Barry Panayi created Choose Your Own Data Adventure to reflect the reality of leadership: imperfect decisions made by people operating in complex organisations.
We work alongside leaders in that reality every day. And were chosen as the delivery partner because of our mission to empower organisations and its people through data, AI and technology.
Delve into your own adventure
Go on your own adventure by buying the Choose Your Own Data Adventure books.
- The Big Query – Explore how to build a Data Operating Model
- The AI of the Beholder – Explore how to introduce AI to your business
Both books are available on Amazon UK right now.
Ready to go on your adventure?
FAQs
What is Choose Your Own Data Adventure?
Choose Your Own Data Adventure is a unique experience aimed at getting teams to break down barriers and discuss the realities of data & AI decision making in the real world.
The material was designed to be engaged with as a workshop. This is where it is most powerful – getting people to work through it together, disagree, discuss and make a decision.
Leadership is an interactive activity, and so is this.
Using the books, your teams step into real-world decisions and have to figure things out together.
There’s debate, disagreement and a few “wait… what just happened?” moments.
It’s a journey for learning and understanding the real impact that data and AI decisions can have within organisations.
Who are the workshops for?
Leadership teams (data and non-data), data & technology teams and data literacy / culture teams.
It works best when you mix people with different responsibilities:
- Data and business teams
- Leaders and doers in the same room
This is where interesting conversations happen, and understanding can truly build bridges between teams.
How are the workshops delivered? Is there a limit on attendees?
The workshops run best in-person, but can be run online. Whether you want to include 5 or 50 people, we design an event that matches your desired goals and outcomes.
In-person workshops are currently only available in the United Kingdom.
How much does a workshop cost?
Cost is based on on group size, length and format (in-person or virtual).
Can we cover both books in one workshop?
We usually focus a workshop on one of the book’s themes. It gives you time to explore the decision-paths properly and see how things play out.
If you want to include both, we can design a longer session that incorporates multiple scenarios.
How many books are there and will there be more?
In 2025, we launched two books:
- The Big Query – Exploring how to build a data operating model
- The AI of the Beholder – Exploring how to introduce AI to your business
In each scenario you step into the shoes of the new Chief Data Officer in a fictional business and guide it through the many decisions you approach.
We are actively developing new books right now – taking direct inspiration from the real life scenarios organisations face today.
If you would like to be involved in developing the next book, email Lawrence Hill: lawrence.hill@ortecha.com
I’m a conference organiser, can you run this as a session?
We can run the workshop at a conference for groups of 10 – 50+ people.
Either run as a workshop session, or as an on-stage, interactive presentation.
Who is Barry Panayi?
Barry is the creator & author of the Choose Your Own Data Adventure series.
He’s been in data leadership roles at Howden, John Lewis Partnership, Lloyd’s Banking Group, Amlin, Bupa, Virgin and more. He’s also been a non-exec director at Reach and Ofgem. So he’s truly lived the decisions your teams are making every day.
The Choose Your Own Data Adventure series draws from Barry’s experience, combined with the questions and challenges the Ortecha team comes across every day.
Who is Ortecha?
Ortecha are a specialist Data, AI & Technology consultancy with a mission to empower organisations and its people.
Ortecha are the exclusive delivery partner for Choose Your Own Data Adventure, and we know the material inside out. But more importantly, we know how to bring it to life.
We guide the room, keep things moving, and make sure everyone gets involved.
