Unlocking Strategic Potential: Unraveling 5 Challenges Faced by Data Leaders

Thank you for reading my latest article Unlocking Strategic Potential: Unraveling 5 Challenges Faced by Data Leaders.?

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In today's data-driven era, organizations have come to recognize the critical role that data plays in driving strategic decision-making and achieving competitive advantages.

However, many data leaders find themselves grappling with the difficulties of producing strategic results despite having access to vast amounts of data. A recent Gartner survey of data and analytics leaders found that fewer than half think their teams are effective at providing value to their organizations.

This week's newsletter aims to delve into 5 underlying reasons behind the struggles faced by data leaders as well as offering insights into potential solutions.

1. Overemphasis on Tactical Execution

One primary reason data leaders often struggle to produce strategic results is the prevalent focus on tactical execution rather than strategic thinking. Due to time constraints and immediate operational demands, data teams often prioritize short-term goals, leaving little room for long-term strategic planning.?

I’ve never worked in an environment where you have the luxury of building for the strategic future state solution alone. There needs to be two-speeds; one focused on the issues of today, and one focused on the future needs of tomorrow. In practice, this can be two (or more) independent dedicated teams.

One environment I worked in had a number of performance challenges with some new data services which were being provided to the business at great expense. These challenges manifested themselves in a variety of ways Every. Single. Day. These issues prevented the data consumers from effectively doing their jobs.?

So try telling your CEO to leave you alone whilst you focus on the strategic solution in this landscape!?

The approach I adopted was to move some resources away from the strategicially focused project team to create a tactical performance optimisation scrum team. We then worked with the business to collect the high-priority key issues and prioritized into user stories with the business. With these dedicated ‘ring-fenced’ resources we were able to see immediate improvements by attacking the ‘low hanging fruit’ first. Addressing the biggest performance issues and beginning to turn the tide. This helped relieve the pressure from the strategic team who could focus on building out more new enterprise-class data services.

Interestingly, a feedback loop from the tactical team emerged which organically fed into the strategic team. This helped to ensure any existing pain points could be ironed out further reducing risk and delays within the strategic approach.?

Shifting the mindset from a reactive, task-oriented approach to a proactive, strategic mindset is crucial for data leaders to elevate their impact. The key message here is to find a balance that works for your organization.?

2. Lack of Cross-Functional Collaboration

Data leaders are often isolated within their teams, which limits their ability to align their efforts with broader organizational objectives. A lack of cross-functional collaboration hampers the integration of data insights into decision-making processes and inhibits the development of a strategic data-driven culture. Encouraging collaboration and fostering partnerships with key stakeholders across departments is essential to bridge this gap, but it also takes a investment of time from you with no immediate return!

A previous company I worked for used to purposely recruit for roles which had an overlap in responsibilities to effectively encourage collaboration. They were prepared to trade off operational inefficiencies for more cross-collaboration. This meant that data scientists and data engineers had a degree of overlapping responsibilities around the ‘handover’ process of provisioning and delivering the data to the business and the analysis of the data to derive insights.

It worked in so much as it forced cross-collaboration but it doesn’t always mean that the collaboration was a positive one!

Although it was interesting that this was a conscious strategy across the business for someone like me who cannot stand waste, and is more drawn to a lean environment I don’t think it’s an approach I would adopt.?

3. Inadequate Communication and Storytelling Skills

This might seem obvious, but surprisingly it’s one of the most overlooked points that I run into - value isn't articulated very well. In fact, I just got off a call whilst writing this article with a client who was trying to articulate the value of what they are doing!

Even with access to valuable data insights, data leaders can struggle to communicate the strategic value effectively to stakeholders. The ability to translate complex data findings into meaningful narratives that resonate with decision-makers is crucial. Enhancing communication and storytelling skills among data professionals can help bridge the gap between data analysis and strategic decision-making.

There’s a few basic questions you can ask yourself when preparing a report or presentation for senior stakeholder to ensure you’re not getting lost in the detail:

Is it the right communication for the right audience? Is it clear? Is the messaging and the language that I'm using clear to the audience that we're talking about? Or are we mixing in technical jargon, technical system definition and conversations? And is it believable? Are we talking about something that the business leadership team will generally understand us to have an impact on?

They say you can’t improve what you don’t measure. But at the same time you need to ensure you’re measuring and talking about the right thing! Metrics can support that story, and they should, but they have to be specific to the audience. They have to tell a story that's relevant to the audience, and they have to support that story.

What we’re aiming for here is to clearly send a message which provides evidence of impact against the outcome rather than simply the effort and work to be undertaken.?

Here's a visual I like to use to think about it:?

I don't have to have a deep knowledge of all the instrumentation and the information that's being served to the pilots.

The goal is I just need to know we're headed in the right direction!

In my experience, IT leaders are typically conformable with numbers and data and naturally include much more information than what is required. The result? The presentation ends up being more complex than it needs to be, while the message is lost in translation. Don’t let yourself fall into this trap!

4. Insufficient Resources and Infrastructure

Data leaders often face resource constraints, including limited budgets, outdated technology infrastructure, or inadequate staffing. These limitations can hinder their ability to extract valuable insights and hinder strategic initiatives. Organizations need to invest in modernizing their data infrastructure and provide adequate resources to enable data leaders to fulfil their strategic roles effectively.

I speak to many data leaders who are still suffering the impact of out-dated technology. Often they have been handed a patchwork quilt of tools and processes which have been built up over the years and now it’s their problem to fix!

This all starts with building a case for investment which can be a time consuming exercise. This not only involves collecting and analysing the required data, interviewing people from across the business, but it also invariably involves building relationships with your key stakeholders who are influential in endorsing the spend for your proposal.

Dont forget that uplifting your data and analytics capabilities will also come with a number of intangible impacts - the ability to deliver business value faster (speed-to-market), have a greater impact in less time, reduce risk and retain and attract talent to name a few.

5. Lack of Strategic Alignment and Clear Goals

Data initiatives should be closely aligned with the organization's strategic objectives, but data leaders often struggle with defining clear goals that are directly linked to broader business outcomes. Without a clear strategic direction, data teams may become disconnected from the organization's priorities, impeding their ability to deliver strategic results. Establishing well-defined, measurable goals and aligning data efforts with organizational strategy is vital for success.

I also like to take an approach that clearly shows lineage and traceability about how the work my teams do on a day-to-day basis actually creates meaningful value for the business. It’s important to highlight how writing this piece of code, developing this dashboard or model actually has an ultimate impact on reducing cost, risk or improving ROI for example. This means when you aren’t around your teams start to incorporate this as a part of their decision making when deciding where to focus their time.

Summary

While data leaders play a crucial role in leveraging data for strategic decision-making, they often face significant challenges in producing strategic results. By addressing these challenges head-on, organizations can empower their data leaders to unlock their full potential.?

Make no doubt about it though, being a data leader in the modern world is complex and challenging. It certainly isn’t for the faint-hearted, you’ll need to be resilient and adapt quickly to changing business conditions.

Your communication skills need to be on-point and that not only goes for your C-level and leadership team, but also for the people who work for you. Attracting and retaining top talent is a huge problem for many of my clients, but the more you invest and empower them the higher the likelihood is they’ll stick around and add significant value.

Emphasizing strategic thinking, fostering cross-functional collaboration, improving communication skills, providing adequate resources, and aligning data efforts with organizational goals are key steps toward overcoming these obstacles and realizing the true strategic value of data.

To stay up to date with the latest business and tech trends in data and analytics, make sure to subscribe to my newsletter, follow me on LinkedIn, and YouTube, and, if you’re interested in taking a deeper dive into Snowflake check out my books ‘Mastering Snowflake Solutions’ and ‘SnowPro Core Certification Study Guide’.

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About Adam Morton

Adam Morton is an experienced data leader and author in the field of data and analytics with a passion for delivering tangible business value. Over the past two decades Adam has accumulated a wealth of valuable, real-world experiences designing and implementing enterprise-wide data strategies, advanced data and analytics solutions as well as building high-performing data teams across the UK, Europe, and Australia.?

Adam’s continued commitment to the data and analytics community has seen him formally recognised as an international leader in his field when he was awarded a Global Talent Visa by the Australian Government in 2019.

Today, Adam works in partnership with Intelligen Group, a Snowflake pureplay data and analytics consultancy based in Sydney, Australia. He is dedicated to helping his clients to overcome challenges with data while extracting the most value from their data and analytics implementations.

He has also developed a signature training program that includes an intensive online curriculum, weekly live consulting Q&A calls with Adam, and an exclusive mastermind of supportive data and analytics professionals helping you to become an expert in Snowflake. If you’re interested in finding out more, visit www.masteringsnowflake.com.