Paul Jones: Data, Strategy, Innovation

  This is the first part of the chapter titled “The Data Literacy Driving School”, from the book “ The Data Garden And Other Data Allegories ”. ______________________________ The reluctant student You look over at your driving instructor and sigh. Why do I have to do this again? you think. Taking data taxis had always been fine before. This seems like it’s going to be a lot of effort, and for what? Your company’s enrolled you on a mandatory data literacy driving course. For years, data employees have been paying to use other people’s data cars to get places, but after a series of wasted journeys and large-scale data car crashes, there has been a decision to educate everyone on how to drive. Someone realised that if people didn’t know how to drive a data car, they wouldn’t be able to effectively direct a data taxi driver to get the best out of their journey. At this point, you’re pretty sure you’re never going to need to use these new skills that you’re learning. Taxis have always ...

I'm happy to present in full, the  first chapter  from the book “ The Data Garden And Other Data Allegories ”, titled "THE DATA GARDEN". ______________________________    Welcome to the Data Garden In this little Data Garden, the plants and trees are data. They’ve all been planted for a purpose. Some are there to bear fruit. Others are there to look beautiful and provide the users of the garden with joy. Some are there to combine with other plants; and there is a single tree, which was planted to fix a swing to, for children to play on. The garden is on a particular plot of south-facing land, which has been cultivated for its owners to derive value and satisfaction from. The owners often go for strolls in the garden, and also provide access to it and its abundant resources for others to enjoy. They charge a small price for admission, so they are able to profit from sharing its many benefits with others. Everything in the garden grows over time. The grass grows deep a...

“Data Management is a Business function”. “Data Management is a Technology function”. Both of these statements are true. The old debate about where a Chief Data Office “sits” in an organisation is missing the point. A Data function needs executive leadership and sponsorship (Business alignment). It needs to understand the business and deliver value. However, Data only exists in a Technology context. Data is the water that runs through our digital pipes. As such, the ability to make changes to Technology is also crucial to any Data initiative – whether the changes are made by the Data team or some other team. The key to success is the creation of effective business/technology partnerships. Joint teams, working together to deliver business and technology change. This is not unique to data management. It is the path to success for any delivery in a modern enterprise and is at the core of disciplines such as those found in DevOps. So, if anyone ever asks: “Does a Data Leader need to be a b...

This is the  fifth part  of the chapter titled “ The Data Garden ”, from the book “ The Data Garden And Other Data Allegories ”. This final section wraps up the story by considering different measures that could have been deployed and also looking forward to applying data management at a significantly larger scale.  It also provides the first of six “lessons”, which underline some of the core messages of the book. ______________________________ Choosing proportionate measures The new measures you’ve put in place to deal with the data litter are a great success. Even better, the increased engagement with data users leads to better relationships with them and improved use and maintenance of the data garden as a whole. However, there were some additional things you could have done, which you consciously chose not to, because you knew that they were too heavy-handed for this particular data garden. In the very biggest garden estates that your data gardener friend looked after...

  This is the  fourth part  of the chapter titled “ The Data Garden ”, from the book “ The Data Garden And Other Data Allegories ”. This section tackles some of the challenges related to data quality, in particular those associated with data users. ______________________________ Dealing with Data Litter The first problem is one that you’re already used to from the smaller data garden: wear and tear. As such, because you and your part-time data gardener colleagues understand the plants and what needs to be done to care for them, you can quickly establish a routine for this. Together, you pro-actively replace patches of grass, cordon off and re-seed where needed, re-plant flowers, and limplement a range of other measures. The key difference in this larger garden turns out to be the way in which you monitor the plants: it’s too big to check all plants every day, and there’s no more budget for additional technology or more people, so you have to put in place a prioritised, ma...