My Digital FootPrint

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

I remain curious about how I can make better or wiser decisions.  I am sharing this as part of my journey as I unpack my own boundaries and models that prevent me from making better decisions.   Context I have personally, and will always, dislike and distrust “traditional” hierarchy, probably because I perceived that the “power” wielded on me would never be available to me.   I was always on the outside; it is the joy of neuro-diversity that you become aware at an early age that to fit in the system and structure, you have to align to it, which for me, had no natural alignment.  You either fight to fit in, fight the system or create your own.  For many fitting in is natural, for me it never happened, and I stupidly opted for creating my own.  I rebelled against the system and structures as I could only see hierarchy as a method of control to something I did not align to - telling me to do things that made no sense.  Write with your right hand as a lefty. I am not alone; from Machiavel

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

Subject: Agenda item for our away day on strategy and scenarios To: CEO and senior exec team We should congratulate ourselves on the progress made, however as your CDO, I am now going to make a case that we measure too much, have too much data and that as a team, we should reflect on the next thing that data can support us in! We have bought into “Data is the new oil,” and whilst we know the analogy breaks down below the veneer, the message is beautifully simple and has empowered the change to a data and digital business. The global pandemic has accelerated our adoption and transformation, and we are in a better place than March 2020. However, sticking with oil, we know that the extraction process has downsides, including carbon release, messy, and difficulty locating economic wells.   Amongst data’s most significant downsides are legal liabilities, noise and the wrong data.  I can easily hide data’s downsides through dashboards.  Our dashboards are based on trickle-down KPI and obj