Becoming data-led? Data and tech aren't the hardest parts.
Many businesses aspire to become data-led and so reap the potential value from their investments data, advanced analytics and technology.
Whilst placing focus on clarifying the use case strategy, building the analytics solutions and develop the enabling capabilities, what is often overlooked is how the organisation’s mindsets, ways of working and capabilities also need to evolve – and often transform.
The truth of the matter is that becoming a data-led organisation means fundamental shifts in a key area of any business – its culture.
1. From a culture of control to one of transparency and curiosity
Control and accountability are key to ensuring clarity of ownership, direction and allocation of priorities, and in delivering outcomes.
Yet becoming data-led means a greater transparency of data, metrics and insight – both through and across the organisation. This involves a mindset shift - from seeing knowledge as power, to creating a culture of curiosity and transparency, so that data is used collaboratively to deliver better outcomes whilst growing organisational knowledge and IP. This means that challenges and issues are made visible to be explored, discussed and resolved - which can lead to uncomfortable realities being surfaced.
Leaders and their teams to feel psychological safe in sharing problems whilst not having the answers. They also need to overcome historical reluctance to share insights and plans across functions, instead encouraging the collaborative use of data by their teams to diagnose and guide suggestions on the best way forward.
So unless leaders and team members feel "safe" in exploring the opportunities and issues surfaced by data, then the transformative value potential of data will remain out of reach.
2. From leaders being the expert to leading through asking the right questions
Senior leaders often achieve their positions of responsibility through using their expertise, knowledge and wisdom to make the right decisions and get things done. Yet in a data-led organisation, the potential from data is to augment that wisdom and knowledge with the insights that data enables, and guide recommendations on the best action to take.
Therefore, the role and skill of leaders needs to evolve from one where they “prescribe” solutions based on their opinions and knowledge, to one where they encourage and prompt the right questions - posing hypothesis that can be tested through data.
Being able to frame questions using an analytical mindset is not a skill that comes naturally for many. It requires a capability and approach that needs focused development. Whilst most organisations are considering or rolling-out data literacy programs, many are just focused on building technical skills i.e. using PowerBI, building data governance awareness or upskilling data analysts.
These programs need to be extended to help business users build the confidence and capability to frame and ask the right questions - and in doing so become smart customers to their internal analytics teams.
3. Moving beyond agile to an adaptive mindset
Many organisations have already adopted some version of agile ways of working to encourage a customer focus, cross functional working, with a rapid iteration of solutions.
Yet having Agile routines may not be enough. As the volatility, ambiguity, complexity, and pace of the business world increases, companies need to move towards an Adaptive model, keeping the aspects of Agile that have benefitted them but looking towards the future with an eye on resilience, flexibility and adaptability. This is particularly true when working with data as the desired answers are often not clear at the start and need to evolve, approaches that show early promise then subsequently fall short and data will surface both opportunities and uncomfortable truths.
Unless leaders and their business and technical teams working with data have an Adaptive mindset as they evolve through agile sprint cycles then the opportunities realised will converge to the easy and obvious, and not surface the nuggets that lie beneath.
Becoming data-led is about culture as well as capability
Alongside structured and governed investments in data, technical capabilities and technology solutions, becoming data led requires an evolution in how leaders and their teams work together and make decisions. In some cases it requires transformation in capabilities, mindsets and confidence to apply.
Unless organisations take a systematic approach to evolving towards a data led culture, then the hoped for benefits will remain out of reach.
"Vision without execution is just hallucination".