CDOs that don't embrace history may become history

One of the most challenging expectations for a new Chief Data Officer (CDO) in an organization is to prove their worth within the first 90 days on the job.

The hiring team has gone through a rigorous process of vetting prospective candidates; arranging interviews with multiple stakeholders, and carefully synthesizing the candidates’ responses and styles. HR has spent time negotiating an attractive offer, and has convinced the candidate that they are, indeed, the best one for the job. With the CDO’s acceptance to join, there is a sigh of relief and a sense of excitement… "the data transformation is about to take off!"

Now, what?

The CDO's first few weeks are critical

The CDO’s first few weeks are filled with many meet-and-greets, multiple business outpourings of aspirations for data, and strategic negotiations to prioritize and fund various data initiatives. Then, reality quickly sets in... the organization has big aspirations of this role! Surely, the CDO has the magic and the know-how to engineer the beginnings of a data transformation – in 90 days, right?

CDOs have a choice of what to do next. There is a sense of urgency to... act. Some choose to socialize their vision for the future; bringing in assets, partners, and experiences. Others link data & analytics efforts to the company’s mission and stated objectives and priorities, forcing an alignment to those stated goals in a 12-18 month roadmap. The impatient ones look for ‘quick-hits’ to prove value and demonstrate that there is indeed, a different way to do things. All these activities are important, but there's one activity that rises higher in priority.

The world-famous author Maya Angelou once said, "You can't really know where you are going until you know where you have been."

Getting the history lesson

Most CDOs don't spend adequate time on what will set them up for success – a detailed understanding of the history of data and analytics in the company. How did one get here? Why did data become such a priority, and who are the real forces behind the higher need for data and analytics? How does technology enable (or limit) better insights? What are the organizational siloes that profess to already do great things with data? Is the organization culturally ready and data literate? Who are the real decision-makers? What has been tried and didn't work? And the big questions that CDOs have asked, but need to ask again - "what is the value of data to the business, and did we allocate the money to do this?"

These are just a sample of powerful insights that CDOs need, to build credibility and instill confidence. The successful CDOs spend the right amount of time getting rid of their blind spots with historical perspectives that led to today. Some groups that have the best historical context include:

• The CDO Sponsor and the interview panel that hired the CDO; they are often the ones that felt the pain or the need to bring this role to life;
• Business and Technology leaders who drive growth and efficiencies in the business, who can share their vision for data & analytics. These efforts might also be driven by a transformation program that can shed insights about the need for change;
• Analysts and technology practitioners (data producers), who are often excellent historians, with a wealth of accumulated knowledge and insights that matter to the business;
• Customers (data consumers), who are good barometers of the current state of insight maturity. The forums they engage in (e.g., operations reviews, planning meetings) are great indicators of what's working and what opportunities abound.

Distilling the learnings

CDOs can build a powerful current-state narrative based on these findings. This includes a deep understanding of the business opportunities to prove value, a detailed view of the technology / data landscape, and critical gaps in data quality, performance, scale, security, etc. The current-state conversations will shed light on how the organization operates and delivers data solutions, including mechanisms for funding, value prioritization, portfolio management, and benefits tracking. Finally, a benchmarking of these capabilities against the industry leaders will lead to a gap-analysis from which the CDO can chart a course for the future.

The call to action

CDOs that ignore or rush through these steps risk the likelihood that their ideas will lack context and aren't fully embraced or understood within the organization. The call to action for CDOs is to spend the time understanding organizational history in order to shape the thinking of what will or will not work in the future.

Leaders that don't embrace history into their future vision, might just become history...

Welcome to the first 90 days!