Delivering the data upskilling agenda: from decades-old good ideas to sustainable change programmes

Delivering the data upskilling agenda: from decades-old good ideas to sustainable change programmes

For decades, organisational leaders have been violently agreeing with the need to ‘be more data-driven’. Why then does the concept keep resurfacing in new guises, what will it take to generate the necessary change, and how can that change be made sustainable?

Data leaders are left with a dilemma, which is particularly acute in the older organisations that dominate manufacturing and the public sector. On the one hand, companies benefit from large reserves of technical people they sense can be empowered. But, on the other hand, their ways of working have been entrenched with different goals in mind.

• How can leaders federate training across business units and skill levels to generate a common language that will facilitate the use of data?
• What principles can make using and sharing data with colleagues as natural as email, calling, and instant messaging?
• What governance approaches encourage upskilling rather than making novices afraid to push their development further?