The 10 CDO Commandments for success

To be successful as a modern CDO you may not need to be truly religious, but you will need to be obsessively spiritual about enabling corporate data and establishing the culture necessary to harness it effectively across political boundaries.

I hereby commend to you my 10 modern-day Chief Data Officer commandments

1) Thou shalt have no other agenda beyond the data

Do you find your time is swallowed up by other C-suite agendas and priorities?

Although the CDO should be a value-creator resident in the business, it is absolutely paramount that they act as the conscience for corporate data at every critical funding run, delivery prioritisation and strategic planning juncture.

"Enrich your inner data soul by ensuring that each data project improves at least one organisational data problem and track these improvements mercilessly to fruition"

2) Thou shalt NOT make 'idle copies'

Do you still believe that having your ‘own personal copy’ of the data gives you data control and delivery simplicity?

Nothing destroys our corporate ability to leverage data effectively more than unnecessary data copying purely to retain the status quo across political and functional boundaries; in fact, this approach will create more silos and pain in the near term.

"Seek redemption in recent technology developments in Big Data, APIs and Cloud alongside more agile ‘outcome-based’ data delivery models to reduce data duplication"

3) Thou shalt NOT take the name of your customer in vain

Are you drowning in sea of privacy and regulation constraints?

Whilst security, governance and complaint mitigation may be high-up on the CDO’s agenda, the reputational damage of poorly shared and limited customer data is far greater in the long-term

"Love thy neighbour by sharing customer data across departments using an API-driven approach and secure personally identifiable data in an encrypted corporate Identity Management capability"

4) Remember the Data Office. Keep it Holy.

If the CDO does not protect the corporate data assets, who will?

The data office will need to establish, communicate and maintain a business inventory of data, APIs, algorithms and consumer analytics. We should avoid ‘data purism’ here and focus on making these assets accessible to our business audience at a pace that establishes both credibility and trust.

"Focus on actionable decision-making data for a specific business outcome first. In short ‘enable the 1’ rather than trying to feed the 5000 from the outset and then expand"

5) Honour your employees and your customers

Are your data teams continuously focused on IT legacy simplification?

Modern CDOs do not embark on unnecessary ‘silo crusades’ which are costly and difficult to maintain. They drive positive change through a series of focused improvements to the employee and/or customer experience.

"Let existing operational ‘friction points’ across back office processes and front-office channel interactions guide your data simplification priorities"

6) Thou shalt NOT kill 'digital agility'

Is each ‘data project’ you execute a chaotic battle of complex interfaces and data stores founded on the mistaken belief that ‘tactical’ delivery is usually faster?

Modern transformation projects usually need to move at a faster pace than the infrastructure and data integration timeline required ‘to do things properly’. A progressive CDO needs a multi-speed delivery model to succeed:

1. Gear 1 federates data via interim APIs directly to various project consumers.
2. Gear 2 integrates and then scales 'proven' Gear 1 successes more widely

"Deliver CDO miracles by establishing a 2-speed model for data transformation and ensure that the project funds cover both ‘gears’ against an agreed benefits case"                                       

7    Thou shalt NOT commit valueless delivery

If your data initiative does not reduce cost, risk or increase revenue growth why are you doing it?

The role of a Chief Data Officer is first and foremost to deliver mutually beneficial outcomes that drive value through both data innovation and simplification.

"The path to enlightenment is to inextricably tie your data strategy and delivery schedule to core business initiatives that have shared pain and critical mass"

8) Thou shalt steal and share data capabilities without prejudice

Do great analytical ideas and data capabilities get hidden under a veil of political control across your organisation?

Often a solution delivered in one department has wide applicability to many. A key role of the Chief Data Officer is to shamelessly locate and share data innovations across span-and-control boundaries rather than trying to contain this capability within a specific business area; Come on disciple! This is the era of 'the Sharing Economy' right?

"Establish an ‘App store’ mentality for analytics that puts functional business teams in the driving seat of data innovation. Industrialise successful solutions widely and communicate failures without prejudice; we often learn more from our mistakes than our successes"

9) Thou shalt NOT bear false '360 view' aspirations

Is your data strategy completely focused on an integrated single view of everything?

The modern CDO appreciates that data has ever-changing context from one consumer to another. We should avoid ‘Obsessive Integration Syndrome’ by implementing more flexible approaches to holding customer and product relationships.

"Reduce the amount of integrated corporate data to an ‘absolute minimum’ and focus more on dynamic relationship and event detection using newer analytical, AI and machine learning approaches to cleanse your corporate visibility and wellbeing"

10) Thou shalt NOT covet data quality perfection

Are your risk, security, transformational programmes and operational functions obsessed with ‘gold-plating’ data before they will share it more widely?

The modern data worker (or wrangler) needs to blend local ‘imperfect’ data with corporately integrated data sources faster and more flexibly than ever before. CDO’s who fail to embrace this accelerated self-service approach will be swept aside and will render themselves increasingly irrelevant across the C-Suite.

"Establish a simple continuous improvement capability that can rapidly ‘assess’ the quality of datasets. Give your data consumers the accountability to decide which data is relevant and when it is appropriate for them to use it"

I hope these commandments prove useful to both established and new Chief Data Officers out there. Whilst we may not need to travel to Mount Sinai to establish these principles across our organisations, I truly believe these behaviours will aid your continued future success.

In the meantime, with regards to your ongoing data journey....Let us pray