Data Culture + Human Culture = Business Success

Why the 4 D’s of Analytics Maturity need the 4 C’s of Human Maturity

For your company to thrive in our fast-paced, high-tech, global economy you must continuously glean insights from the vast amounts of data created every day. To generate these insights, you must develop enterprise-wide Analytics Maturity. Here at Aryng, we help clients fortify their data culture with the 4 D’s of Analytics Maturity. The 4 attributes are:

1.      Data-driven Leadership: The leaders of the organization understand the power of data as well as analytics and have a strong motivation to lead by numbers.

2.      Data Maturity: There is a single source of truth for data that is accurate, accessible, agile, and actionable.

3.      Data Literacy: Everyone across your organization, both analysts and non-analysts, understands and champions the use of data to drive your business.

4.      Data-Driven Decision-Making: Your organization has a decision-making mechanism that aligns data and insights with each key driver of your business. This mechanism insures that each member of your organization understands how their work moves your key metrics used to measure performance.

In this blog, I explore how the 4 D’s of Analytics Maturity are enhanced by the 4 C’s of Human Maturity. The 4 C’s of Human Maturity are:

1.  Communication: the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs.

2.  Collaboration: to work, one with another; to work or act together or jointly for a common purpose or benefit.

3.  Creativity: the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination.

4.  Common Sense: sound practical judgment that is independent of specialized knowledge, training, or the like; normal native intelligence.

 [Source: Dictionary.com]

 To really understand what drives business success, let’s explore the interplay of Analytics Maturity within each component of Human Maturity.

1.  Communication: As a Data-Driven Leader who champions Data-Driven Decision-Making, you must be able to effectively communicate the power of your insights and strategies to your team members and stakeholders. This requires knowing the perfect level of detail for each unique audience.

So when you are talking to your team of skilled analysts, you can use terms like ‘lift’ and ‘chi-square.’ But when talking to your board or your marketing department, you want to avoid statistical terms. Instead, talk about the ROI and dollars in profits that is expected as a result of your data-driven strategy.

Developing and maintaining Data Maturity and Data Literacy require strong communication skills. Analysts and non-analysts alike need to be able to discuss and debate data strategies and insights. Effective communication insures that every team member has a common understanding and trust in the data definitions, structures, and processes.

2. Collaboration: Over the last half century, the role of leadership has changed. Due to increased complexity and specialization, Data-Driven Leaders who advocate Data-Driven Decision-Making must learn to collaborate with other areas of the business. For example, in a data-driven organization, the Chief Marketing Officer must work with the Chief Technology Officer to coordinate data-driven marketing efforts. This requires aligning departmental goals and creating experiences to build respect and trust.

Data Maturity and Data Literacy also depend on the ability of team members to collaborate in an effort to strengthen data structures and processes. Aligning and educating team members of the benefits of a strong data foundation will help to build trust and inspire collaboration.

3. Creativity: Driving your business with data is as much an art as it is a science. As a Data-Driven Leaders using Data-Driven Decision-Making, you have the luxury of automating many of your routine processes. The foundation of your ability to automate is your Data Maturity and Data Literacy. Think of the competitive advantage you will gain by spending your time dreaming up new products and services  or improving systems and processes. This data-driven automation frees your time to be creative – a powerful way to increase your competitive advantage.  

4. Common Sense: As our businesses become more data-driven, it is increasingly important to use our common sense. This is true for all 4 D’s of the Analytics Maturity model. While our goal is to automate data collection, processing, extraction, analysis, and decision-making, we must continue to use simple reasoning to insure accuracy and reduce complexity.

Experienced team members are a great resource for common sense. In one scenario, a data analyst was asked to deliver leads to the sales team based on the scores of a predictive model. The number of leads generated by the model for that month was much higher than usual. The sales manager immediately knew that the increase in the number of leads was driven by the fact that it was the final month of the fiscal year when the sales teams are highly motivated to make the final sale. This insight inspired the analyst to incorporate seasonality in future models.

In conclusion, the 4 C’s of Human Maturity will always be necessary to insure the success of the 4 D’s of Analytics Maturity.  Here’s the good news! The more we use the 4 D’s of Analytics Maturity to drive our businesses and the 4 C’s of Human Maturity to insure success, the more we can spend our time creating and inventing exciting breakthroughs that will take our businesses to the next level.