Introduction

This chapter looks at the importance of listening and asking questions during the first 100 days, but also filtering what you hear. The chapter explores some of the critical tasks of the first 100 days: making the ‘case for change’, assessing the level of data maturity, defining the destination and the scope and establishing the data basics. It is aimed at the CDO, so the ‘you’ in this chapter is the CDO.

There is little scarier when you are starting a new role than having a blank piece of paper in front of you. The chapter aims to help you over that hurdle. It covers what you need to focus on when you start your nice, new CDO role, how you understand where you are starting from and where you want to get to, as well as the steps to get you there. What makes a good case for change, and why is ‘coffee and cake’ so important? What do you need to do about your ‘information basics’ of governance, architecture and engagement, and what are the tangible examples of how to communicate your visions to people? Why are quick wins so important? All of these questions are covered in the first 100 days.

Starting out in your new role

How do you climb Mount Everest? One step at a time. It can seem like a completely overwhelming task at times, but just by focusing on the next step you can look back at the end of your first 100 days and see how much you have achieved.

When you take on this role expect to spend a lot of money on coffee, cakes and biscuits! Such a large part of being a CDO is based on relationship building, so get ready to spend a lot of time meeting people – hence the coffee and cake budget!

Gartner predicted that by 2019, 90% of large organisations would have hired a CDO – but only 50% of these would be a success, and this seems to be what really happened.