Are you a "Data Driven" Organization?

We often hear from Leaders – C-suite, VP’s etc. that the enterprises/ organizations they represent are Data driven organizations. When asked to elaborate they often default to “Our decisions are based on data…” or “We focus on data…”. These and other responses are true but, are tactical and ask them the next question “What’s the data culture of the organization?” to get at the details and the truth emerges. I believe that Data Driven organizations are those that take a Strategic view of data as an Asset! Truly Data Driven organizations are comfortably able to answer questions like:

1.     Do you have a documented and shared Data Strategy and Roadmap that’s been executed on?

Data Strategy has finally got to the central stage that it was long overdue. Organizations are finally focusing on managing data as an asset with a longer term (a year or beyond) perspective. So, when a data strategy and its roadmap for execution has been collated, documented, communicated, and supported the needed foundation and guardrails are in place for enabling the data as an asset. What are the components of a Data strategy? That’s another upcoming thought piece.

2.     Is there the appropriate Supporting Budget?

If you have the above strategy and a roadmap being executed, the next question is if the needed financial funding has been aligned to it. By funding I do NOT just mean for data storage, cloud, analytics but, are there line items and appropriate funds for all aspects of the Data ecosystem - People, processes, technology, security…(https://www.garudax.id/pulse/need-structure-data-decisions-use-my-sandwich-amit-shivpuja/?published=t).

3.     How much effort/ time/ attention do sources spend on Data Quality? What are their actions?

I have seen so many instances and come across conversations where leaders just assume that setting up data engineering teams, data analytics teams and they will ensure clean, robust, and usable data leading to value. If you remember my other post (https://www.garudax.id/pulse/tripod-structure-successful-data-team-amit-shivpuja/?trackingId=jcY7WmncRDSE5h%2FR%2BQJ%2FMg%3D%3D), there is another leg needed for a stable tripod – Data Strategy and processes. As part of the organization’s process what steps have data generators like engineering teams and product orgs taken to provide clean data? How has the business context been communicated and incorporated into the plan before data is sourced? Fix data and data quality at the source and please make sure that data is NOT “digital exhaust”.

4.     Do you really see your data?

Organizational leaders will say, when asked this question, that they know what data they have and what they are doing with it. But to be able to truly “see” the data an appropriately authorized person can, in a self-serve fashion, answer these questions (E.g. Data Observability)

a.     What data do we have, where does it come from (lineage), and where is it stored (Catalog)?

b.     What does this data mean (business context) and how is it defined?

c.      Where is it currently used (dashboard, report, etc.) and by whom (analyst, team, department)?

d.     Who can I talk to if I have questions about the data (stewardship)?

e.     How is the data maintained and cleaned (data quality)?

With answers to these questions one truly “sees” their data.

5.     Do you all understand and protect your data assets?

Given the recent and continuing spate of data breaches and conversations of data privacy the first instinct is to point to Information/ data security policies in an organization. But I want to call attention to a more basic fact. If, like I mentioned previously, it takes a village, then do the employees, team members, associates in your organization understand and follow the information/ data security policy.

Do this test: At random pick a few people in the organization and ask them to explain how they are responsible/ or their role in data security. Ask them if they handle PII (Personal Identifiable Information) or what regulations (GDPR, CCPA, etc.) they are bound by? You will know the answer to my question in 30 seconds. Training during orientation is NOT enough. Please invest in continued training/ testing and consider ownership enablers like charters that folks consent to and re-consent to. EVERYONE in the organization need to be able to confidently answer this question…

6.     Have you computed the value of your data?

This, I acknowledge, is a harder one. I recommend looking into sources like the book “Infonomics” by Douglas Laney but, while you are assimilating the same, consider doing this exercise. Try attributing a value to the data that you have. You can approach it by computing the cost of operationalizing the data (bottom-up), based on the business value (top-down) or as I sometimes think a hybrid of both and more. I agree that the value of data is kind of like “in the eye of the beholder…” and I will share more on this in my upcoming piece. The goal here is that a $ number next to data is to give clarity to many decisions aimed at getting ROI in the investments to make data an asset.

There are a few more questions but the ones above are key and when an organization routinely focuses (or has focused) on the answers to these repeatably as part of the organization’s culture, then the organization becomes truly data driven! So, if data feels like a “stepchild” asset, the whole organization needs to take responsibility and give it a little more love and attention asap. As they say “It takes a village…”