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Data Darwinism – Evolving your data environment

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In my previous posts, the concept of Data Darwinism was introduced, as well as the types of capabilities that allow a company to set itself apart from its competition.   Data Darwinism is the practice of using an organization’s data to survive, adapt, compete and innovate in a constantly changing and increasingly competitive business environment.   If you take an honest and objective look at how and why you are using data, you might find out that you are on the wrong side of the equation.  So the question is “how do I move up the food chain?”

The goal of evolving your data environment is to change from using your data in a reactionary manner and just trying to survive, to proactively using your data as a foundational component to constantly innovate to create a competitive advantage.

The plan is simple on the surface, but not always so easy in execution.   It requires an objective assessment of where you are compared to where you need to be, a plan/blueprint/roadmap to get from here to there, and flexible, iterative execution.

Assess

As mentioned before, taking an objective look at where you are compared to where you need to be is the first critical step.  This is often an interesting conversation among different parts of the organization that have competing interests and objectives. Many organizations can’t get past this first step. People get caught up in politics and self-interest and lose sight of the goal; to move the organization forward into a competitive advantage situation. Other organizations don’t have the in-house expertise or discipline to conduct the assessment. However, until this can be done, you remain vulnerable to other organizations that have moved past this step.

Plan

Great, now you’ve done the assessment, you know what your situation is and what your strengths and weaknesses are.  Without a roadmap of how to get to your data utopia, you’re going nowhere.   The roadmap is really a blueprint of inter-related capabilities that need to be implemented incrementally over time to constantly move the organization forward.   Now, I’ve seen this step end very badly for organizations that make some fundamental mistakes.  They try to do too much at once.  They make the roadmap too rigid to adapt to changing business needs.   They take a form over substance approach.  All these can be fatal to an organization.   They key to the roadmap is three-fold:

  • Flexible – This is not a sprint.   Evolving your data environment takes time.   Your business priorities will change, the external environment in which you operate will change, etc.   The roadmap needs to be flexible enough to enable it to adapt to these types of challenges.
  • – There will be an impulse to move quickly and do everything at once.   That almost never works.   It is important to align the priorities with the overall priorities of the organization.
  • Realistic – Just as you had to take an objective, and possibly painful, look at where you were with respect to your data, you have to take a similar look at what can be done given any number of constraints all organizations face.   Funding, people, discipline, etc. are all factors that need to be considered when developing the roadmap.   In some cases, you might not have the internal skill sets necessary and have to leverage outside talent.   In other cases, you will have to implement new processes, organizational constructs and enabling technologies to enable the movement to a new level.  

Execute Iteratively

The capabilities you need to implement will build upon each other and it will take time for the organization to adapt to the changes.   Taking an iterative approach that focuses on building capabilities based on the organization’s business priorities will greatly increase your chance of success.  It also gives you a chance to evaluate the capabilities to see if they are working as anticipated and generating the expected returns.   Since you are taking an iterative approach, you have the opportunity to make the necessary changes to continue moving forward.

The path to innovation is not always an easy one.   It requires a solid, yet flexible, plan to get there and persistence to overcome the obstacles that you will encounter.   However, in the end, it’s a journey well worth the effort.


Tagged: data, data analysis, data darwinism, data integration, data management, Data Quality, data services, EIM, enterprise information management

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