Key Points

• A data-driven culture is a corporate culture guided by the flow of accessible information.
• One of the fastest ways to integrate it is to start with the leadership.
• Keeping data accessible to everyone is paramount for this culture’s success.

Is it easy to build a data-driven culture for your business? Data is a driving force in any modern organization. Even mom-and-pop stores are leaning on what they can glean from the digital revolution. As such, it is more important than ever to take the steps to create a data-driven culture to take your organization to the next level.

This isn’t a difficult process by any means, but it is a time-consuming one. Further, it requires absolute dedication from everyone from the top to the bottom of your organization. If you’re willing to take the next step, you’re in the right place. So, let’s dive into what defines a data-driven culture, why you want to, and how exactly you go about doing so.

What Is a Data-Driven Culture?

So, how does this organizational trait differ from the usual structures seen across many enterprises? When you consider something data-driven, that means it is wholly embracing data. It isn’t just part of the background, guiding decisions, or providing KPI for production. Rather, it is used throughout the entire organization, from the very top leadership to the employees doing the rank-and-file work.

Data is a valuable commodity in the modern world and is shaping the way many organizations conduct their businesses. As such, it takes a transformative effort to fully embrace a new culture centered around this valuable principle. Additionally, a business that has embraced data in all facets is allowing itself to provide clear empirical information on its internal and external performance.

Data isn’t some cure-all panacea by any means, but when you consider that businesses can live and die based solely on information, it becomes a key part. It isn’t so much how you gather the data, but rather what your organization chooses to use it.

Why It Works

You wouldn’t prepare a brand-new product for the market without doing a bit of research, would you? The same notion can be applied to the internal workings of an organization. When you’re embracing a data-driven culture, you’re making informed decisions the vast majority of the time. This means that you’re readily taking steps that benefit your organization.

This can be all-encompassing, from product design right down to the hiring process itself. It can be a daunting process to consider turning everything into hard data points that are readily summarized in something like an Excel worksheet. However, at the end of the day, many organizations have already embraced this sort of culture for the better.

Why it works because you have the means to guide every single decision in your organization with solid backing to inform them. Depending on the metrics you have defined, at least. The world has changed, and data is far more valuable than it once was.

Building a Data-Driven Culture For Your Organization

So, now that we’ve defined a data-driven culture, how do you create one? Most of the time, implementing such a vast corporate culture change isn’t a technical problem to consider. Instead, it is a people problem. If you’ve got a bunch of people employed who aren’t willing to embrace the change, then that can certainly pose problems.

Thankfully, integrating this sort of thinking into your organization isn’t quite as daunting as it might seem. It will take effort and dedication, but it isn’t as complex as learning how to operate the brand-new copier that was just installed.

So, let’s dive into how exactly you can take the steps to integrate a data-driven culture in your workplace. As I mentioned, this is a people problem, so you start with the people and the rest of the pieces fall right into place.

Get Leadership On Board

Integrating a data-driven approach doesn’t start at the ground floor. You start at the very top and work your way down. If your C-level executives are using data to inform their decisions, then it would stand to reason this would become common practice throughout the entire workplace. Consider for a moment that you’re senior leadership at a large software development firm.

You’re two weeks out from the launch of a new application and you’re reviewing the testing information from a batch of quality testing endeavors. Something doesn’t line up, so you send things back and schedule a delay. You’re leading through example in this case, and this approach is going to filter all the way down to your most junior employees.

Shifting corporate culture can sometimes seem like trying to sway the opinion of some great leviathan of sorts. However, if you’re leading by example, then it has already become part of the culture. By making this new approach the usual method of operation for your leadership, the more junior employees are being informed on the right way to make their own decisions.

Develop Solid Metrics

Data without a foundation in metrics might as well just be random numbers in a spreadsheet. As such, if you’re looking to foster a more data-driven culture in the workplace, set the metrics. Decide what you’re measuring, and why you’re measuring it. Consider for a moment that you’re building a car. You certainly wouldn’t rely on the weight to give a reliable indication of the power output of the car’s sound system, would you?

You’d pick something like the wattage, the resistance, and so forth. These are metrics that provide relevancy to the data you’re collecting. The same applies to the culture you’re trying to foster. You can define the metrics you’re aiming to abide by, whether it’s things predictive accuracy on the performance of a new product launch against a competitor or worker efficiency.

Metrics are the things that give data a basis in reality. Without them, they’re just electrons on a screen, some amorphous set of mathematical computations. You can tabulate and calculate with them all you’d like, but they need to reflect the reality of your organization’s goals, performance, and so forth.

Integrate Analysis Into Your Workflow

When I was still actively working in tech, it wasn’t uncommon to see data scientists separate from the rest of the workforce. Now, a decade ago, this was common practice, but this isn’t the best way to foster a data-driven culture. If you truly want to leap forward, then analysts should be integrated with just about every department in your organization.

Your data scientists and analysts shouldn’t be a wholly separate entity, segregated from the rest of the workforce. When integrated, this allows your analysts to gather workable and actionable data. A data scientist in their department might not be of much use when it comes to gauging the rate of defects in a production line.

However, if you’re keeping those same analysts in the pipeline for all the data flowing out of every department, they can do their jobs far more effectively. This has a few major benefits, but you want to synthesize that real-world experience with the technical expertise your analysts possess in the first place.

Make Data Easy to Obtain

One of the biggest hindrances in getting a data-driven culture to stick in an organization is a lack of access to information. Often, the powers that be will slowly delegate the relevant data points to users as needed. This isn’t just time-consuming, it means any decisions being made are held up by the flow of data.

Instead, I’d heavily suggest implementing something that is far too common in tech circles. The principle of least privilege makes data accessible, without having to worry about who receives it. By assigning data categorically to those who need it, you’re keeping the flow constant.

This doesn’t mean you’re making data available for all departments, but rather the accounting department accesses their data, sales get their information, and so forth. It is something we’ve used in system and network administration since the advent of group policy and is more than a suitable way of keeping the data flow constant.

Quantify the Qualitative

Not everything is easily summarized into handy number points. However, that doesn’t mean it remains without a quantity. There are techniques for quantifying qualitative properties, as we’ve seen in quite a bit of statistical analysis. Yes, that even means factoring and calculating things like uncertainty. Your data modeling shouldn’t be static, it needs to evolve. You won’t always have the data needed to complete models, and that’s fine.

The degradation of data veracity can hamstring an organization just as much as a lack of data flowing in. Take the time to tweak models, and quantify the qualitative and uncertain, because the whole organization depends on it.

Keep It Simple

It might seem silly, but data-driven culture isn’t about absorbing jargon and becoming so computer-savvy you can replace your tech departments. Data could and should be easily processed by the average layperson. When presenting data to lower-level employees or even higher-level leadership, you want it easily digestible. If the information is laden with jargon, technical information, and so forth, it isn’t effective.

As such, if you’re serious about fostering a data-driven culture, consider the message you’re trying to convey.

Integrate Analytics Across the Board

All too often, we consider data as something applicable solely to customers and things like sales. However, that doesn’t have to be the case. If you’re serious about data-driven culture, which I hope you are if you’ve made it this far, it’s worth integrating for employees as well. This isn’t a means to inform them of their conduct and performance, but rather a means to show them the benefit of leveraging data for their benefit.

If you can allow employees to see where they can avoid rework, save time, or even cut through the tedium, then it becomes something less abstract. Show where data is a tool for their benefit, just as much as it is for the rest of your organization.

Implement JIT For Your Employees

There is a concept in software development called Just In Time, or JIT, compilation. This means that code isn’t run until its function or library is called upon by the application. So, how does this work for your employees? If you’re looking to integrate specialized or advanced training for the success of a future project, consider conducting the training right before work begins in earnest.

Rather than adhering to the training over months or years, the concepts are fresh, and further, they’re actionable. This might not seem like a huge deal, but it cuts down on the time it takes to get everyone up to speed with the same level of expertise.

Other Useful Tools and Concepts

Data is a valuable component of any business but isn’t the only thing to keep in mind. Consider artificial intelligence and its ethical implications in the workplace. AI is a buzzword, for good reason mind, but it has a very real human impact on the jobs it might be replacing. You can read about these dilemmas in our informative article on the subject.

Further, you might need to learn about the best tools for creating your own Ishikawa diagram. This is one of the easiest tools for conducting root-cause analysis, and software has made it a cinch to get up to speed in a hurry.

Conclusion

Data-driven culture seems to be the way of the future or rather the new normal for organizations going forward. Thankfully, integrating it into your organization doesn’t have to be some sort of Sisyphean task. By taking the right steps and measures, you’re guaranteeing your organization’s continued success.

The image featured at the top of this post is ©Golden Dayz/Shutterstock.com.