Total Enterprise Reinvention and the Power of Data

Total Enterprise Reinvention?is a set of comprehensive strategies that positions government to keep up with the pace of change, especially in the context of a world with extended crises and unexpected?challenges. One critical strategy is re-orienting operations toward data-driven decision-making.??

Funny thing: it sounds easy, but it isn’t. Getting it right is hard work. It takes three things: getting access to data, having the ability to make meaning of the data you get, and finally, having the courage?to take action on what you learn.??

Let’s take those from the top.??

Access to data is about getting enough reliable data to anchor your work.??

A couple of decades ago, there was consistent pressure for government to get data. In many cases, they did. And now they are swimming in it. It’s almost as if we got data for the sake of getting data, and?now, managing it has become a bewildering task. Also, the data in which we are swimming is suspect – it has errors and gaps simply because the tools which it needs to be entered into are hard to use, and it's often conflicting or duplicated.??

Resolving any of these issues requires more modern tools that reduce human error in data entry and discipline to focus on the data that is?actually?needed to anchor future decision-making. Here, less?is often more.??

Attending only to this definition of ‘access’ – creating a data set to anchor future decision-making – won’t fully resolve the challenge. That’s because the creation of these data sets happens in siloes.?Each government agency in a particular jurisdiction creates its own data set and relies on it to get their work done. The truth is their data alone won’t suffice. Managing government effectively will require sharing data across siloes. While technically, this?is not a challenging task, there is a lot of resistance to data sharing, usually in deference to privacy.??

?

Solving major challenges in government will require that we redefine the limits of sharing so that data sets can provide a whole view of citizens, communities, and infrastructure.??

This level of access frees you up for the next challenge: having the ability to make meaning of the data you get.???

New technology includes analytic techniques and data visualization tools that unearth patterns, correlations, and trends. It positions you to unravel a hidden story within a huge bundle of data, and to consider?decisions from a robust place of facts.?

This opens up the opportunity to create a culture of data-driven decision-making where managing and interpreting data is everyone’s job – not just the person with the word “analyst” in his title. This?means prioritizing data literacy across all levels of the organization and getting the workforce into the day-to-day practice of using data as part of the language they use to get their jobs done.??

Getting access to data and then deriving meaning from it are powerful tools for understanding solutions. The hardest part comes last: having the courage to take action.??

Sometimes we learn things from data that we did not expect. Sometimes actions that potentially solve pressing problems will require significant changes for people, which can often be hard. And sometimes,?decisions may be unpopular, despite the fact that they leap off the page with statistical clarity.??

Taking action requires 360 degrees of support across government – from elected and appointed officials, from administrators who oversee programs, and from staff who?provide direct services. We are far more likely to get that support when there is confidence in the data we have accessed and transparency about the analysis that led to the conclusion.??

This is how these three things – access, meaning, and action – work as interlocking gears in organizations that use data to drive decision-making.??

Imagine this example: A mayoral administration is committed to new jobs and higher employment rates. With data to drive decision-making, they might have a collection of data sets that include the?location of new companies moving to town, the location of working-aged adults who were under-earning, and maps of bus routes. They could use these data to develop an understanding of the patterns. Which of the new jobs include a wage that exceeds the eligibility?level for public assistance? Which of the adults could receive the training that would qualify them for one of the new jobs? Which bus lines would need to be re-routed so that these newly employed adults could get to work riding two or fewer buses? Decisions?made based on these patterns would have a measurable impact on employers bringing their businesses to town, on improved employment rates among current residents, and on the overall local economy.??

This is a great example of a strategy that is core to how?Total Enterprise Reinvention?works. Re-orienting operations toward data-driven decision-making is challenging work. The thing to know is that success in government is not about how many decisions you can make. It’s about how many decisions you can make, and that stick.

The ones are driven by quality data and robust analysis? They will.??