The assessment says our company is data immature. What does that mean?

Well firstly don't stress. I am pretty sure (OK, make that very sure) that you are in some great company! There are not actually that many organisations in the world who can complete the questionnaire and come up with a score of 4 or higher (5 being the highest). In fact, in my experience the general "score" is around 1.8 to 2.3! 

Stop and breathe. Having a score in this ball park is great! It gives you so much opportunity to grow and to improve! You are aware of the problems you have with data and information and are actually reacting to them. Yes, you are not being proactive yet - but that is such a small step to take - now that you know where you are!

OK, admittedly I am the proverbial dataholic (in fact if my Twitter handle wasn't already @suegeuens, I think @dataholic would suit me perfectly). Which means I love seeing data problems as they are my meat and potatoes. However, it really excites me seeing an organisation at this level. There is just enough knowledge and "awareness" in amongst the key players that working on solving the data and information problems is possible. 

Having this score means that your organisation has already heard about and to some extent understood Data Quality, Data Governance, Meta-Data and the other myriad terms us dataholics use all the time! 

And the biggie - you took the assessment! That says volumes about you! It says you are ready and that you think your organisation is ready! It says that you are on your way to being a data management professional and that maybe you will become a dataholic and join me! 

So back to the organisation and the assessment. Being data immature is all about not yet managing your data in such a way that you are getting the best information out of it and that the executives and management are not yet able to make the most informed business decisions. Yes, your business is still running and fairly competently in most cases. You are managing to service your customers, pay your suppliers and employees and in general make a profit. BUT - are you doing it all excellently? Are you managing all this data and information in an effective, useful and informed way? 

The assessment says probably not! That is not the end of the world, but rather the beginning of a new journey. A journey that will excite, frustrate, annoy and anger you - all at the same time. A journey in which you start to change not just your own view of data and information, but those of your colleagues around you. 

Being data immature is exciting! Yep - somewhat scary, but exhilarating. Being data immature provides you with the most amazing opportunity to change how your organisation works. It gives you the chance to innovate and be agile/ flexible and above all creative. Being data immature is the next best thing to being information mature! 

Start that journey today. Find out what the assessment says about your organisation - https://eventsspace.net/events/datamaturity.