Integrating the Dataverse

  As we continue to remove the mystery around data strategies, we will spend the next few weeks diving into the components and principles that make up data strategies.  My hope is that as you start putting the pieces of this puzzle together in your own mind, you will start to see that with a methodical and measured approach, a solid data strategy is within your grasp.  Today, we are going to start focusing on data governance.   Data governance is a key component of a successful data strategy. It ensures data reliability, security, and usability throughout an organization. Data governance manages data from creation to deletion. It involves defining roles, responsibilities, processes, policies, and standards that guide data management and protection. But don’t worry.   We are going to take our time.   Today, we will cover data governance at a high level, and as the days go by, we will get into the details.   When we are done, you will all have greate...

  Building and executing a data strategy is hard, and if anyone tells you they can do it for you in 3 easy steps, they are lying.  The fact is, there are quite a few steps involved that can seem overwhelming.  Some of these steps can take an organization years to cultivate, like building a culture that not only relies on the data but demands to have it to make any decision.  A key thing to remember, however, is that a data strategy does not need to be fully baked when you start down the road of implementing it.  When you build using strong data principles, you will be able to move forward providing business value, and your data strategy can flex as you fill in the details.  The Main Parts of Your Data Strategy: So what are the parts of a data strategy, which ones do you need right away, and how can your data principles help fill in the gaps?  Below are 10 core parts of a data strategy that you will need to at least consider before starting. ...

  It has been a long time since my last post, and a lot of things have changed.  I have a new job, I have moved to the other side of the state, and I even have a new dog.  But one thing that has stayed with me is my focus on data and how much potential it has.  All of this change has also solidified my understanding of why a data strategy is critical to any success in the data world.  Without a strategy, your effort will be as useless as trying to strike the wind.  You have to be able to aim your blows if you intend to hit anything.  In our case, we want to "hit" that business objective, the one thing that the business must have to progress to the next phase in its development.   The thing I have come to understand is that when the term "Data Strategy" is used, most people in management jump right to the end and focus on things like cost or "vendor lock-in".  Some people in management focus so much on what they perceive the outcome will ...

Data governance is a subject that most people would rather let someone else cover.  It is hard to do, hard to maintain, and hard to communicate with the business.  The business just expects the data to be right, it does not want to know what goes on behind the curtains.  Today we pull back the curtains to expose some of the things you will need to consider when you make it to this stop on your data strategy roadmap. First lest define what data governance is.  In a nutshell data governance is a set of business rules and processes that are supplemented with technology to achieve standardized data that can be checked and verified.  A key part of data governance is that the results can be repeated and can be validated by external sources if need be.  Data governance is a tool that can be used when you are in a heavily audited industry like banking to show the path that your data has taken and the reasons for the changes.  It will also naturally lead you do...

One last tool you will need to have ready to use when you implement your data strategy is not really a tool. It is more of a framework that you will need to build around you and your team. As you lead your team you have to acknowledge that there will be set backs in time lines or even in tasks. You have to build up a framework using process to support your team and combat the mental fatigue that discouragement creates. So how does a leader show to the team that their feelings are known, understood, and cared for? First you have to acknowledge that discouragement is going to be a part of this process. To show this you have to put processes in place to combat it from the start. What is important here is that your team knows that you care and the only way that they know that is if you show them that. Start with these five tips: Break tasks down into smaller parts . When faced with a large and complex task, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed. To avoid discouragement, break the task do...

So the day has come.  It is time to start laying out your data strategy roadmap.  This one document is probably the most important document you will create in this entire process.  The next 2 - 5 years will be governed by this document and it will judge you constantly!  So how do we do this? Here are 10 steps to creating a data strategy roadmap. Just be cause we can list these off does not mean that you will get this all done in one day. Quite the contrary it will take time to get these accomplished. You do have to be reasonable though. Realize that some of these steps will never be done and business objectives change. Perfection is not the goal here but we do need to find the balance between "good enough" and perfect. Here we go! Investigate data sources . The first step is to identify all of the data sources that are available to the organization. This includes both internal data sources, such as customer databases and sales data, and external data sourc...

I took a week off to decompress with the family. I really enjoyed the time away but when I got back I noticed that things had not stopped while I was gone. New tasks at the office waited on me, new employees were ready to on board, and new business questions were burning up in my inbox. Business moves faster than light now days so how can you keep up? Having a plan is the first step in herding the cats into one direction. That data strategy is a great way to throw up some guard rails around the tasks that are a priority to the business. But how do we document that? And better still how do we use that documentation to make sure you are going in the right direction? The short answer is that you need a well-defined data strategy roadmap. Now that is much easier said than done, and we will spend this week diving into how to build out that roadmap, but today I want to highlight WHY you need this roadmap. So let us define what a data strategy roadmap is. It is a plan that outlines ho...

This past week we have spent time taking a huge task of implementing a data strategy and broken it down into smaller pieces. Each piece has been built on the previous just like moving up a set of stairs. In meditating on this past week I realized that the pattern of breaking down a huge task into parts can be applied to anything. Trying to save for a house? If you focus on that 20% down number you are shooting for it may seem impossible, but can you save $100 a week? After a few weeks do you think you can save $150 a week? It will take time but if you focus on this goal one week at a time you will move into your new home. We are faced with a wide range of challenges that can seem so daunting that we don't know where to start. We may feel overwhelmed and scared. But it's important to remember that we can overcome any challenge if we break it down into smaller, more manageable steps. So where do we start? At the beginning of course. We have to look at the situation in fron...

We have made it to the end of the week to the last step in executing your data strategy. Now by no means do I think that this process is as easy as 4 steps. The boots on the ground effort that will be required to put this into motion can take months. I am trying to provide some verticals of work so that you can stay organized and focused. The pillars that I have been reviewing over the last few days will provide you with the structure you will need to be successful at developing and executing your data strategy. I have also spent the last few weeks wrapping everything around one common cord. Communication. Nothing will work if the team is not on board, from the highest level right down to the mail room. The ONLY way to engage them all is to make sure that they all understand the goals, reasons, and how we all plan to get there. Now let’s figure out how to do that. What do you need to consider when documenting your data strategy? Be clear and concise . The data strategy shou...

We have made it to day 3 and step three of exploring the steps we will need to execute to build out our data strategy.  It is time to figure out the lay of the land.  How do we figure out where we are starting from? The best way would be to perform a data audit. This audit is a process of assessing the quality, accuracy, and completeness of your organization's data. It is an essential step in developing a data strategy because it helps you to understand what data you have, where it is located, and how it is being used. What should you expect to get when your data audit is finished? First, it can help you to identify any gaps in your data. This can be helpful in determining which data sources you need to collect or improve. Knowing this will also help you to know which data source you should start with. Second, a data audit can help you to identify any errors or inconsistencies in your data. This can help you to improve the accuracy of your data and to ensure that it is reli...

As a continuation of yesterday we are going to look at the next data strategy step today, engaging and keeping the business stakeholders engaged throughout the execution of the data strategy. Business stakeholders are anyone that has direct connection to a business outcome. Some may argue that you would need to talk and work with parts of the business that just support business units that have direct connection to the business outcome, but I argue that if you are involved in the process, you play a key role. If the whole does not work together then no one succeeds. This does mean that your list of key business stakeholders is rather large, so as with anything we do in data, you will need to prioritize. They may not all get the same level of attention in the project meetings, but the following step will still apply to them. These stakeholders will span the business process that will be impacted by the data strategy. For instance, if your business outcome is to get information to your cu...