My Digital FootPrint

I know the journey is more important than the destination, but destinations provide an essential point as they mark somewhere to head towards.  All journeys start with a single step, and for me, this journey started a little over three years ago. I have spent this past period considering the question, “How do we make Better Decisions.” This question was refined to become “How do we make Better Decisions with data.” This expanded into “How do we make Better Decisions with data and be better ancestors?”  My journey can finally see a destination.  However, I am now facing a more significant challenge. Having reached the destination zone, I want to leave a mark, and it's straightforward to imagine planting a flag. The hope is that when the flag is planted some of the team back at home can see that you've reached the final place.  In most circumstances, the destination is not in the Line-of-Sight. Therefore you pick up the flag and wave it, hoping that somebody with bino...

In commercial land, the axis of power has tended to rest with the CEO/ CFO relationship.   There is always a myriad of other political triangles that lobby and wrestle for power and sway decisions.  Given that decisions are increasingly reliant on evidence which is data, the CDO gets dragged into everyone's battles, which are not always in the best interest of the business, customer, ecosystem or society - such are incentive scheme. Everyone else in the senior team does not want to recognise is that the data they use as evidence and proof is equally supportive or detrimental to everyone else's cause.  Whilst everyone else on the leadership team gets to pick and bias what they foreground and promote, the CDO has to keep their mind open and judge all data with the same level of critical thinking.  This tends to mean the CDO becomes the punch bag when data either supports or otherwise a decision, which in reality is a political lobby for power which the data may not fu...

source: accenture https://www.accenture.com/_acnmedia/PDF-108/Accenture-closing-data-value-gap-fixed.pdf Several generations ago, the incentives in your organisation mean that those who collected and analysed old data created bias. Such bias occurred as people in the system favoured specific incentives, rewards and recommendations.  The decisions made created certain processes and rules to hide the maintenance of those incentives and biases. The biases worked to favour certain (the same) groups and outcomes, which have, over time, become part of the culture, reinforcing the processes and rules. How do you know, today, what bias there is in your strategic plan. What framing and blindness are created because of the ghosts in your system?    If you cannot see, touch and feel equality and balance in gender, race and neuro-diversity, it is likely that the bias is still there.  Whilst it might feel good to get to a target, that does not mean the systems, rules and pr...

Below are essential characteristics any CDO’s needs, ideal for a job description. After the list, I want to expand on one new superpower all CDO’s need, oddly where less data is more powerful. Image Source :  https://openpolicy.blog.gov.uk/2020/01/17/lab-long-read-human-centred-policy-blending-big-data-and-thick-data-in-national-policy/ Day 0 a CDO must: BE a champion  of fact-based, data-driven decision making. However, complex decisions based on experience, gut instinct, leadership and opinions still play a role, but most decisions can now be underpinned with a firmer foundation. BE curious  about how the business operates and makes money and its drivers of cost, revenue, and customer satisfaction through the lens of data and analytical models. BE an ambassador  of change. Data uncovers assumptions that unpack previous political decisions and moves power. Data does not create change but will create conflict — how this is managed is a critical CDO skill. BE a great...