I love Florence Nightingale's historical example¹, who used data and data visualization to establish that poor hygiene was, at least in part, responsible for the high mortality rate among injured soldiers. The potential for data to inform the right activity to achieve impactful outcomes remains relevant today.

Organizations have to embrace data literacy and create a culture that values data-driven decision-making. As we move from slide deck to value, I think three things are essential: collecting meaningful data, using data meaningfully and creating meaningful trust in data-driven decisions.

Collecting meaningful data demands that we shift left. Capturing high-quality data needs to be a first-class functional requirement in any new system. We can start by reenchanting the value of logical data models as an artefact every application owner should maintain. It's a great way to start a conversation about what data an application holds and what questions we want to ask about that data.

Using data meaningfully demands that leaders not only "speak data" conceptually but also role model data-driven analysis and decision-making practically. The biggest hurdle to role modelling a data-driven culture is likely the vulnerability that transparency demands. Leaders must be willing to say, "Now that we applied a data mindset to this problem, we recognize that we have taken a suboptimal approach in the past."

Creating meaningful trust in data-driven decisions demands more transparency, accountability and discipline. The reality is that organizations are filled with political players who are more interested in lobbying for positions than acting with integrity in service of the whole. Until there is a culture of accountability, the feedback loop does not exist to drive continuous improvements in data-driven capabilities. In addition, until there is transparency, the door is open for political players to manipulate data to serve egoic narratives.

Organizations will not develop the muscle to leverage data for the "big" decisions until they have the discipline to leverage data for the "small" decisions. Organizations that do not actively develop a data mindset throughout the maturity journey might spend millions on building advanced technical data capabilities without the mindsets to match the capability.

Notes

• An early version of this reflection was posted on LinkedIn.

References

Related tags

data and decision sciencemanagement