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...

If there is one thing that can change finance’s power and dominance as a decision-making tool, it is the rest of the data . According to Google (2020), 3% of company data is finance data when considered part of an entire company’s data lake. McKinsey reports that 90% of company decisions are based on finance data alone, the same 3% of data.   If you are in accounting, audit or finance shoes, how would you play the game to retain control when something more powerful comes on the scene?  You ensure that data is within your domain, you bring out the big guns and declare that data is just another asset or liability, and its rightful position is on the balance sheet.  We get to value it as part of the business. If we reflect on it, finance has been shoring up its position for a while.  HR, tech, processes, methods, branding, IP, legal, and culture have become subservient and controlled by finance. In the finance control game, we are all just an asset or liability a...

I have written my fair amount over lockdown, but a core tenant of my hope was to leave the old normal behind, not wanting a new normal but a better normal.  The old normal (pre-#covid19) was as exhausting as I felt like a dog whose sole objective was to chase its own tail.   I perceived that a new normal (post-lockdown) would be straight back to doing the same.  My hope was for a  “better normal” where I got to change/ pick a new objective.  Suppose I unpack old and new normal with a time lens on both ideas.  What am I really (really honestly) doing differently hour by hour, day by day, week by week, month by month and year by year, today compared to the old normal.  My new brighter, shinny, hope-filled, better normal looks remarkable like the old when viewed by the lens of time.  Meetings, calls, reading, writing, communicating and thinking. Less travel and walking has been replaced with more allocation to the other activities, but I have lost t...

This article is about how to ensure Directors gain assurance about “data” that is supporting the recommendations in a Board paper. I have read, written and presented my fair share of Board and Investment Committee papers over the past 25 years. As Directors, we are collectively accountable and responsible for the decisions we take. I can now observe a skills gap regarding “data”, with many board members assuming and trusting the data that forms the basis on which they are asked to approve. There are good processes, methods and procedures for ensuring that any Board papers presented are factual. However, decisions using big-data and their associated analysis tools, including ML and AI, which drives automation, is new and requires different expertise at a higher level of detail.  Challenging data is different from finding it hard to question in detail any C-suite on their specific expertise and, more generally, the general counsel, CFO and CTO.  The CDO/ CIO axis bridges the va...