Quick Guide to Improving Data Literacy Across Your Team

Your business is trying to tell you something. Are you able to read between the lines to understand what the message is?

A strong data strategy is key to harnessing the untapped potential of your business, whatever it is you do.

From customer behaviour to granular marketing indicators and everything which happens in between, there’s near infinite information at our fingertips.

So, knowing how to understand it is imperative.

What does “data literacy” mean?

As defined by Gartner, data literacy is, “the ability to read, write and communicate data in context, including an understanding of data sources and constructs, analytical methods and techniques applied, and the ability to describe the use case, application and resulting value”.

…Sounds complicated, right? In layman’s terms, data literacy means the ability to read data. To be able to take meaning from the findings. To be able to comprehend what it’s trying to tell you and turn that knowledge into meaningful decisions and impactful actions.

Data literacy is about your ability to harness the power of information. So, here are my three quick tips to improving data literacy for both yourself and your team at large:

Start talking about data

Every member of your team comes into contact with data on a daily basis, whether they realise it or not! With so much opportunity around, it’s time to start having conversations about data, even at an extremely high level. Doing so will promote more awareness, which will in turn create even passive recognition of some of the information we’re each surrounded by.

Start making mention of small items that could make a big difference. Start referencing interesting finds you’ve had so far. To get people talking about data is to get them thinking about it too; the more interest, the further data literacy is going to improve in general.

Start looking for patterns and taking notice of averages

The very basic components of data literacy come down to how X correlates with Y – and how you can use this information to your benefit, of course. At a basic level, being able to judge averages fairly closely is a skill worth fostering across your employees. Of course, this is especially and obviously of benefit to your sales and marketing teams – but the ability to see what the numbers are saying and doing at a glance will play into the hands of all departments in one way or another.

Encourage your staff to look out for tell-tale signs of things which are working, things which aren’t, and to try new things to test these theories if possible/practicable.

Start feeding back to your team and keeping them in the loop

When your team begin seeing the results of a data-driven decision and how it affects or benefits them directly, they’re going to start taking note. So, keep them informed on the data you’re monitoring, the actions you’ve taken, and what the result was.

Creating this feedback loop will start driving more activity around data, bringing with it, quite naturally, an uplift in data literacy. More questions being asked means more understanding. More understanding means more meaningful data, driving important decisions.

Improving data literacy across your team

We help teams do all of the above and more through strategic hires at key points in your data strategy journey. As specialists in this space, we understand the important skills you need to hone across your team for maximum impact in the diverse spectrum of business analytics.

Get in touch with me today to talk more about how we can help you – send me a direct message here on LinkedIn to set up a call, or get in touch on 03 9052 5900.