Data Leadership Collaborative: Three Ways Data Leaders Can Drive Impact Now

Originally published in Data Leadership Collaborative

Not every company has achieved maturity as a data organization, but there are a few steps any data leader can take today to move the ball forward and make data more effective, especially if you’re managing a team. These include:

• 1. Demonstrate the importance of data Ask for and gather metrics that are available within your company or division. When you are reviewing data visualizations, speak to their creators about the data on which they’re based and how they built them. By posing these questions, you demonstrate that data is hugely important to who you are as a company.
• 2. Inventory data sources and talent A lot of organizations don’t think to actually catalog the data they already have available to them. This is especially true in large, siloed companies, where data leaders may struggle to answer basic questions like these:
  • What licenses do we have? 
  • What access to data do we have? 
  • Who on staff is currently working with data?
  Simply by looking at what data already exists in your organization you can think about ways to make that data effective by leveraging it better or highlighting it more within your company. This step also helps you clarify whether or not you have the right kinds of data.
• 3. Define desired outcomes Be specific about the outcomes you want to see as a leader in terms of optimizing data use. This may mean taking a workshop or class about how to do that. But it’s essential, because if you’re unaware of all the different use cases, you won’t be able to direct a data strategy that takes advantage of the full effectiveness of your team and the data you have. Give yourself the time to think through these steps to get you to a very good place.