Machine Learning - eBook (EN)

CIO GUIDE: REWIRING YOUR CULTURE TO BE DATA-DRIVEN 6 Silos can be fatal to a data-driven business, but they are in- credibly difficult to break down. Legacy culture and organi- zational structures too often reward individuals for their ability to curate, validate, and publish data to promote their own agendas—while restricting how others in the organiza- tion use it. This can create several versions of the truth, which impedes informed decision-making rather than enabling it. Instead of data silos, organizations need data stewards, empowered by a governance structure that moves beyond gatekeeping functions that restrict access to data to an enablement strategy that identifies why someone requires access to data to get their work done, and then creates the proper permissions (with the proper controls) to use the data for that purpose. "Think about how your data moves across the organization," says Vachhrajani. "What are the gatekeeping controls? Identifying these controls can help you figure out how hard it is for someone to get access to data to work on or make a decision from. That gives you a good picture of any silos that exist." It's important in this context to understand why different groups feel the need to guard "their" data, and how that ap- proach prevents the free flow of data across the enterprise. Creating data stewards involves encouraging the people who control data access and quality to become educators As you modernize your data and analytics infrastructure, don't overlook the process improvements that are critical to streamlining people's access to data. If you're migrating to the cloud, you don't want to repeat past mistakes— and that includes recreating existing data silos. Use the migration as an opportunity to rethink existing processes and data flows, based on the business outcomes you're looking to achieve. and data champions. They still have input into how data sets are validated and published, but liberal use of auto- mation can free them up for a broader role. CIOs can play an active role in creating data stewards by building trust among business stakeholders and demonstrating how the willingness to share access to departmental data benefits everyone. IT-driven automa- tion can help streamline manual data-sharing processes to free up stakeholders to focus on the strategic use of data rather than the tactics for accessing it. "Start with real examples, not just theory, of how data sharing has benefited a particular department [using data] from another area," explains Gabriel. As part of that communication, "emphasize that without sharing, there can be redundancy of data, redundancy of cost, as well as an inability to see the full picture," he explains. "That creates a disadvantage to the company as well as an individual department." In order to engender that level of trust, CIOs must cultivate strong relationships across the business, from the C-suite down to frontline operations, Gabriel says. "In many respects, a CIO needs to have the understand- ing of a COO—not from the perspective of running the operations of the entire company, but of understanding those operations and how they are integrated or complementary," he adds. Step 3: Create data stewards, not data silos. What to watch out for Four steps for creating a successful and sustainable data-driven culture 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4

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