Data Culture is still an evolving discipline, and one symptom of this is poorly-defined job titles and skillsets – advertise for a Data Culture Analyst and you might get Data Analysts and Business Analysts applying.
So at our recent Data Culture Club roundtable event in London, we posed our members two questions:
- Is it possible to have a strong data culture without a dedicated team?
- How would you structure a data culture team if you had to start from scratch?
Is it possible to have a strong data culture without a dedicated team?
Amongst our members, not everyone had a dedicated Data Culture team – but everyone wanted one!
We concluded that in certain organisations it might be possible to have a strong data culture without a dedicated team, but it would be difficult and slow-going.
Time
If Data Culture is being led by people who aren’t in a dedicated role, they can only do it ‘side of desk’, with the associated bandwidth challenges.
Changing the attitudes, behaviours and capabilities of hundreds or perhaps thousands of colleagues is a major undertaking. Securing buy-in from leadership, liaising with HR and Data teams, and running wide-ranging education & engagement programmes will proceed at a snail’s pace if they can only be fitted around other responsibilities.
Consistency
With no dedicated team, small initiatives across the organisation may bubble up, with good intentions but varied approaches – different target behaviours, tools, recognition schemes, or perhaps measurements of success.
It’s important to encourage local enthusiasm, and tailor comms & training to different parts of the business (so that it makes sense in the context of their everyday work), but there needs to be consistency across the organisation.
It’s almost like an internal marketing campaign, with a single clear mission and voice. And ultimately a Data Culture should become part of the broader organisational culture, so it needs to be recognisable and working at that level.
Momentum
Another risk is that an organisation ends up relying on particular personalities and charismatic individuals, whose influence can wax and wane as they move roles or focus on new interests.
A dedicated Data Culture team is better placed to create and maintain the momentum needed to make the changes needed across the whole organisation.
You absolutely can have a strong data culture without a dedicated team, but we don’t recommend it!
How would you structure a data culture team if you had to start from scratch?
The size and extent of a Data Culture team would depend on the complexity data-maturity of the organisation, but our members reckoned there were some common themes.
Skills
Changing an organisation’s attitude to data involves a number of elements, which often get conflated together but actually require quite different skills and knowledge. For example:
- Change Management & Project Management
- Communications, Community & Events Management
- Learning & Development
- Data Management
If you don’t have a dedicated team, you may be able to co-opt colleagues in other departments to help you out. If you’re in the happy position of being able to recruit a team (internally or externally), think creatively – some of our Data Culture Club members don’t come from a traditional data background, but from the worlds of organisational psychology or teaching.
Structure
Most members would recommend a central Data Culture team to set the direction and coordinate effort (at least at the beginning). But it’s also important to have local champions across the business, who can help put the messages and concepts into context.
More than that, though, you need to be able to connect them, so there’s an understanding of how upstream issues can cause downstream problems, especially where they span different departments.
Support
Another aspect that cropped up a lot in our discussions was the need for support from the Leadership team.
Ideally they would be early adopters, demonstrating the desired behaviours themselves in order to inspire others – but at the very least providing resources, recognition and encouragement to the Data Culture team.
With this support, and a mindset of empathy, curiosity and genuine care, a Data Culture team is well-placed for success.
Join the club
We hold quarterly roundtables to allow members to meet in person, and have a thriving virtual forum for online discussion. If you work in this space, you’d be most welcome to join! Please get in touch with Araminta to learn more.
Araminta Huitson
Data Culture lead, Ortecha
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Building better data cultures, together
We’ve nurtured a community of Data Culture leaders who meet regularly, online and in-person, to share ideas, swap advice and get real about what works (and what doesn’t) when it comes to building healthy data cultures that last.
With more than 100 members representing multiple countries, and working for a range of industries, we’re able to bring together a great mix of perspectives helping shape the discipline.
We hold regular events so people are able to meet in person and virtually to talk about their challenges and successes with people who get it. We’d love for you to join us!
