Introduction

This chapter begins by painting a picture of BAU (business as usual), what the ‘data environment’ looks like at day zero when the first CDO arrives, and understanding who is currently making the data decisions, or how and why they are being made. The chapter then puts forward the case for a dual-track approach to a data strategy – the immediate data strategy and the target data strategy – with six tips for success and the idea of fixing forward.

Business as usual

One of the most difficult tasks for a new CDO is developing and delivering a data strategy while the organisation continues to operate (and must continue to operate) using and abusing data, continuing with bad habits around data and often with a lack of governance and planning. This has been likened to performing open heart surgery on a runner while they are in the middle of a marathon; they still have to run and compete and finish the race. In reality what has probably been happening is more like patching up the runner, putting a sticking plaster on the heart problem, giving them water to keep them going without a clear map to get them to the end of the race. In most situations for a new CDO the organisation probably feels that it has been operating quite happily without this new person for a very long while – or this will almost certainly be the case in parts of the business and helps to explain low levels of data maturity; people really don't understand the problems that they have. So, for the new CDO it may feel like they are sitting in the corner, talking to themselves.