Building a Data Culture

"I had come to an entirely erroneous conclusion, which shows, my dear Watson, how dangerous it always is to reason from insufficient data."  Sherlock Holmes (The Speckled Band - 1892)

Our goal here at Data Driven Impact is to promote the use of data to promote better policy decisions, program delivery and service to stakeholders. McKinsey suggests 70% of digital projects fail.  IBM says it is closer to 84 or 85% of digital projects fail.  Given that governments and public sector agencies are amongst the most active data collectors, we need to find better ways of using data as a strategic asset. In my experience, the biggest hurdle to effective data and digital transformation in government is the data culture. 

Data culture is the recognition that having data is not enough.  We need to transform that data into information, knowledge and insights that inform decisions, policy and impact. That requires a transformation of our organizational data culture. Data culture includes the values, behaviours and attitudes of executives and employees about the use (or nonuse) of data in our day to day activities. We already have an existing data culture that may dismiss data as a key strategic asset or as a critical input into decisions and discussions.  We need to transform our data culture into one where data is not just seen as a key strategic asset, but is used as a key input into creating effective policy, decisions, impact and outcomes. 

Tableau has created a framework to help organizations do just that. Having spent several years working with customers to improve their data strategy, the company identified five elements of a successful data culture: 

• Trust: Leaders trust their people and people trust the data.
• Commitment: People treat data as a strategic asset, and they fully commit to realizing the value of their data assets. 
• Talent: To effectively analyze data and use it to make better decisions, agencies must invest in their employees: a data culture, after all, is ultimately composed of ‘data people.’ 
• Sharing: Data requires collaboration: Most problems can’t be solved by one individual or team. They rely on collaborative teams to share ideas and insights with one another.
• Mindset: People prioritize data over intuition, anecdotes or rank. A shared, data-first mindset creates an environment where ideas lead to innovation and impact. 

Transforming a data culture is a key step in driving data driven impact in the public sector.  I believe that understanding and fostering a positive data culture is 80% of a public sector data strategy.  The technology is easy!  Building the culture takes time, listening and understanding - it is the people side of data transformation.  We will have lot's more to say on this subject in the future.

For more information on data culture see the Resources section at datadrivengovernment.ca

Please share your data culture experiences in the comments below.  

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Feel free to contact me by email or follow me on LinkedIn.  For further information on data driven impact and data driven government, visit my website at www.datadrivengovernment.ca.