Countdown: Book Excerpt Chapter 1

Here is an excerpt from my forthcoming book, ‘Driving Data Projects: A Comprehensive Guide, set to release on February 26th, 2024.

👉 The U.S., CAN, and UK pre-order links are available here or on Amazon

Data has traditionally been managed by a combination of information technology (IT), Operations, and Finance. Over the last ten to fifteen years, the chief data officer (CDO) role has come onto the executive scene. While not yet a universal title, the role of the CDO started by reporting through these functions and is beginning to be considered separate.

🎯 So what?

The CDO’s primary mission, though not always stated directly, is to cultivate data as a strategic asset for the organization. This premise emphasizes merely embracing the most efficient approach to managing ad hoc requests for a data pipeline to a discrete group of stakeholders, prioritizing data (and perhaps even the internal mechanisms of the data supply chain) as a separate asset for the whole organization.

🎯 Why should we care?

It speaks to data's integrated and entangled nature—every function depends on it. To better prioritize data across the organization, the CDO role needs every employee to work with data effectively across all functions. This need means that working with data is no longer just a specialist skill; it’s a critical workforce development skill. The data team must take the lead, using every project to educate stakeholders about the needs, implications, and consequences of managing data. They must take these projects as an opportunity to explain how data works and help stakeholders take a more active role in driving accountability and reducing bias.

🎯 Why does this matter, now?

First, ten years ago, the person responsible for curating data’s success (whether the CIO, CFO, CTO or now the CDO) used to be predicated on the awareness and abilities of their immediate stakeholders—and they were resourced to handle that. Today, their success is predicated on the entire employee population’s awareness and abilities—and they ARE NOT resourced for that!

Second, almost all projects involve data to some degree, yet the data aspect is not adequately addressed. Often, leaders invest in technology and then try to retrofit everything around that decision because many technology teams do not regard their projects as data projects. These decisions impact or, in some cases, determine data strategies for an organization but aren’t recognized as such. In this way, all technology projects are data projects.

Chapter 1 | Data Foundations