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Click here to access all the articles and archive for </Hello CDO> A very modern problem for leadership, executives and boards is, in fact, a very old problem; it is just that the scale, impact and consequences have increased.  Evidence .   There are two sides to the evidence coin, the proof the problem is the priority problem for scarce resources, and the other side is that that solution is the one that will drive the outcomes we desire.  Very different evidence requirements, and each side have many faces. Complexity and uncertainty mean that the historical preference for gut feeling and big leadership power plays provide insufficient rigour in the decision-making process. However, evidence gathering and presentation have similar issues.   Evidence can always be found to support the outcome you want (is this a problem or not), and incentives mean that evidence about which solution creates the best outcome will be lost, reframed and distorted.  Unpicking these two sides and man

The last article was about being railroaded in the first 100 days, recognising that you are forced into a decision.  In this one I wanted to unpack that “data” shows that using science in an argument (say to defend against railroading) just makes the members of the team more partisan (aligned to their own confirmation bias and opinions).  As the #CDO, your job is to use data and science, therefore in the first 100 days, with this insight, you are more likely to lose more people than win friends, lose more arguments than win and create bigger hurdles?   What I suggest, based on this work is that to overcome “proof by science” is to use curiosity to bring us together. Image source: from a good article by Douglas Longenecker --- Dan Kahan , a Yale behavioural economist, has spent the last decade studying whether the use of reason aggravates or reduces “partisan” beliefs. His research papers are here . His research shows that aggravation and alienation easily win, irrespective of being

Whilst our ongoing agile iteration into information beings is never-ending, there are the first 100 days. But what to focus on? Well, that rose-tinted period of conflicting optimisation is what </Hello, CDO!> is all about. Maintaining sanity when all else has been lost to untested data assumptions is a different problem entirely. On Day zero of being a #CDO, you have to be ready and prepared as a translator, interpreter and go-between. Yes, the essential “translation” of business needs into information requires identifying the appropriate data, the relevant analysis, and the correct interpretations, but that is not what I am talking about. There is a different translation to the appropriately modelled, described and analysed, data that offers the language to enable siloed departments in organisations to talk to each other. The CDO must have translation skills to help other executives talk about what data means to them and that each party leaves with a common understanding. Excep

Day zero of being a #CDO is probably not the best day to ask difficult questions; however, sometimes, there is no better day.  The first question to ask the executive leadership team as you walk around being introduced might be: “What is the one thing that we, as a team and organisation, want our data to drive, deliver or provide?” You might want to wait to ask this question and first determine what tools are being used. This will frame what outcomes and decisions are being supported.  The question and answers allow you to determine if there is an alignment or gap between “What is the one thing that we, as a team and organisation what our data to drive, deliver or provide? ”  and what will happen anyway because of tools, processes and legacy.  One critical aspect of being a #CDO is determining how our processes and methods only enable certain decisions to be made, but we have to unpack legacy. Legacy within this framing is threefold. Decisions. Decisions. Decisions. These are:   Deci

Source :  worth observing that this Dilbert was 1993 !!!!  Radar and sonar are incredible inventions as they allow us to perceive what cannot be actually seen with the naked eye.  As technology has advance and big data analysis has emerged we have gone from a simple echo to high-quality resolution.  However, the peak value for Radar is that it informs you something is there which requires low resolution and very little data.  As Radar resolution has improved we can get direction and speed which requires a little more time. This new information definitely adds value to any required reactive decision. The identification of what the actual object is through increased resolution has an incremental value but not as much as knowing it is there and what direction at what speed but such information can lead to a better decision but suddenly there is an economics of cost compared to the incremental improvement in outcome.  Knowing what type of bird by species or what plane by manufacturer, doe

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 fully support