Encouraging Data Innovation

@BCSDMSG and @DAMAUK ran an online conference last month, entitled Delivering Value Through Data. Videos are now available on YouTube.

The conference opened with a very interesting presentation by Peter Thomas (Prudential Regulation Authority, part of the Bank of England). Some key takeaways:

The Bank of England is a fairly old-fashioned institution. The data programme was as much a cultural shift as a technology shift, and this was reflected by a change in the language – from data management to data innovation.

Challenges: improve the cadence of situation awareness, sense-making and decision-making.

One of Peter's challenges was to wean the business off Excel. The idea was to get data straight into Tableau, bypassing Excel. Peter referred to this as straight-through processing, and said this was the biggest bang for the buck.

Given the nature of his organization, the link between data governance and decision governance is particularly important. Peter described making governance more effective/efficient by reducing the number of separate governance bodies, and outlined a stepwise approach for persuading people in the business to accept data ownership:

1. You are responsible for your decisions
2. You are responsible for your interpretation of the data used in your decisions
3. You are responsible for your requests and requirements for data.

Some decisions need to be taken very quickly, in crisis management mode. (This is a particular characteristic of a regulatory organization, but also relevant to anyone dealing with COVID-19.) Then if they can cut through the procrastination in such situations, this should create a precedent for doing things more quickly in Business-As-Usual mode.

Finally, Peter reported some tension between two camps – those who want data and decision management to be managed according to strict rules, and those who want the freedom to experiment. Enterprise-wide innovation needs to find a way to reconcile these camps.

Plenty more insights in the video, including the Q&A at the end - well worth watching.

Peter Thomas, Encouraging Data Innovation (BCS via YouTube, 15 June 2020)