What's your Data Culture Plan for 2023?

Summary: As we start the new year, it's a good time to commit to data culture goals. Vanessa Lam has written some thoughts and a developed timeline as a starting place for Data Culture in 2023. In this article she shares them with you.

Vanessa Lam Director, BRSdata Read Author Bio || Read All Articles by Vanessa Lam

As we start the new year, it is a good chance for us to take a step back and re-think how we are approaching our data culture. How are we improving data trust? Are we being intentional about our data communications? Are we supported by senior leadership?

Every organization has a data culture: the organizational processes and social norms surrounding the production, use, and consumption of data. However, these norms may not currently be what you want them to be. People may be distrustful or confused when interacting with data, or even refuse to use it altogether.

Without a concerted effort, data culture can easily fall to the wayside and not be a priority; however, that almost always leads to poorer data outcomes. With some regular commitment and good data communication and outreach habits, we can slowly and steadily improve data culture across the organization.

Below is a 12-month plan for how to renew and refresh your data culture. This can be for new data leaders joining an organization, teams that are just starting to think about data culture, or organizations that are looking to improve their current practices.

Data culture change does not happen overnight. The Data Culture Timeline provides a 12-month roadmap for re-thinking how you are approaching your data culture and be a starting point for data culture change. However, even once your data culture has improved, it is important to continue these good practices and put in systems that encourage data community. Data culture is a continuous project, but with consistency and strong leadership it can be one of your organizations greatest data assets.

Data Culture Timeline

Month	Goal	Tasks	Stakeholders
1	Orientation	Understand and catalogue data assets (data sources, pipelines, dashboards, lakes etc.) & usage	Data Team Analysts Decision Makers
2	Continue Orientation		Data Team Analysts Decision Makers
2	Preparation for Building Data Trust	Conduct listening tour (understand issues and identify opportunities) Document findings	Data Team Stakeholder Analysts Stakeholder Executives
3	Get Executive buy-in	Prepare for presentation Present to executive leadership on Data Culture Initiative Encourage open conversations about Data Culture	Executive Team Data Team
	Create Data Communications Strategy	Understand company communication channels Learn about communication needs & gaps Develop Communications Strategy Create templates for regular updates and communications	Data Team Stakeholder Analysts
	Create Data Education Strategy	Conduct analysis on gap between current data usage and desired data usage Understand education avenues in the organization Understand groups of stakeholders and what each needs to be educated on	Data Team
4	Continue Create Data Communications Strategy
	Continue Create Data Education Strategy	Begin creating data education assets (PowerPoints, hands-on datasets, sandbox environments, etc.) Create meeting times for in-person education	Data Team
	1st Roll out Data Communications Strategy	Communicate about data news: Who is the data team? What do we do? What changes are coming?	Analysts Data Leadership
	Foster Data Community	Prepare and hold a Data Meet and Greet	Analysts & anyone interested in learning more about data
5	Refresh Data Charter	Update data charter to reflect goals of the team, both cultural and strategic	Data Team
	2nd Roll out Data Communications Strategy	Communicate about Data Changes: New data, known bugs/outages (ongoing)	Data Leadership
	Roll out Data Education Strategy	Begin meeting with Data Stakeholders about Data Basics	Data Team Data Stakeholders
	Foster Data Community	Initiate Office Hours: Create a space for Data Team to answer questions on data input, interpretation, and culture	Representative from Data Team (Data or Business Intelligence Specialist)
6	Define roles and responsibilities for the Data Team	Re-define roles and responsibilities if needed	Data Team
	Celebrate Data Team Achievements	Communicate recent developments and data gains to stakeholders	Data Team
	Build Data Center of Excellence	Identify Key Data Allies across the organization Discuss possible opportunities to be more involved with Data Discuss expectations and incentives with them and managers	Data Allies Data Team
	Foster Data Community	Hold Office Hours: Create a space for Data Team to answer questions on data input, interpretation, and culture	Representative from Data Team (Data or Business Intelligence Specialist)
	Foster Data Community	Launch Data Brownbag Lunch: Create a space for data people to share their knowledge with data and non-data people alike	Data Team Stakeholder Analysts Anyone else who is interested
	Roll out Data Education Strategy	Begin meeting with Data Stakeholders about Data Intermediate Skills Discuss with Data Allies how to support Data Education on their teams	Data Team Data Stakeholders
7	Foster Data Community	Hold Office Hours: Create a space for Data Team to answer questions on data input, interpretation, and culture	Representative from Data Team (Data or Business Intelligence Specialist)
	Foster Data Community	Data Brownbag Lunch: Create a space for data people to share their knowledge with data and non-data people alike	Data Team Stakeholder Analysts Anyone else who is interested
	Build Data Center of Excellence	Prepare and hold a meeting for Data Allies and Data Team — Meet and Greet	Data Allies Data Team
	Clarify data responsibilities across the org	Write data responsibilities for each team Know who to go to if they have data questions	Everyone! Especially data team and data allies
	Roll out Data Education Strategy	Begin meeting with Data Stakeholders about Data Advanced Skills Support Data Allies with team specific Data Education	Data Team Data Stakeholders
8	Foster Data Community	Hold Office Hours: Create a space for Data Team to answer questions on data input, interpretation, and culture	Representative from Data Team (Data or Business Intelligence Specialist)
	Foster Data Community	Data Brownbag Lunch: Create a space for data people to share their knowledge with data and non-data people alike	Data Team Stakeholder Analysts Anyone else who is interested
	Build Data Center of Excellence	Hold meeting for Data Allies and Data Team Define Governance Structure	Data Allies Data Team
	Roll out Data Education Strategy	Ensure Data Education is embedded in onboarding and regular training processes	Data Team
	Celebrate Data Team Achievements	Communicate recent developments and data gains to stakeholders	Data Leadership
9	Building Data Trust & Community	Presentation for the executive team on Data Culture — what it is and how to foster it What we have done so far to foster it?	Executive Team
	Foster Data Community	Hold Office Hours: Create a space for Data Team to answer questions on data input, interpretation, and culture	Representative from Data Team (Data or Business Intelligence Specialist)
	Foster Data Community	Data Brownbag Lunch: Create a space for data people to share their knowledge with data and non-data people alike	Data Team Stakeholder Analysts Anyone else who is interested
	Build Data Center of Excellence	Prepare and hold meeting for Data Allies and Data Team — Governance and Metrics Discussions	Data Allies Data Team
10	Re-Launch Data to the entire org	Make a presentation to the organization demonstrating new data capabilities and dashboards Make announcements on communication channels Visit stakeholder teams to talk about new initiatives	Everyone! Especially data team and data allies
	Educate Stakeholder teams about data culture and responsible data use	Visit stakeholder teams to talk about data culture and responsible data use	Data Stakeholders Data Allies Data Team
	Foster Data Community	Hold Office Hours: Create a space for Data Team to answer questions on data input, interpretation, and culture	Representative from Data Team (Data or Business Intelligence Specialist)
	Foster Data Community	[HIGH VISIBILITY] Data Brownbag Lunch: Create a space for data people to share their knowledge with data and non-data people alike Ensure high engagement because of Re-launched data	Data Team Stakeholder Analysts Anyone else who is interested
	Build Data Center of Excellence	Prepare and hold meeting for Data Allies and Data Team — Governance and Metrics Discussions	Data Allies Data Team
11	Celebrate data team achievements	Create communications about data team achievements for the org	Data Leadership
	Continue Data Office Hours	Create a space for Data Team to answer questions on data input, interpretation, and culture	Representative from Data Team (Data or Business Intelligence Specialist)
	Continue Data Brownbag Lunch	Create a space for data people to share their knowledge with data and non-data people alike	Data Team Stakeholder Analysts Anyone else who is interested
	Build Data Center of Excellence	Hold meeting for Data Allies and Data Team — Governance and Metrics Discussions	Data Allies Data Team
	Build Data Trust	Monitor and Maintain systems, foster interest in data team activities	Data Allies Data Team
12	2023 Retrospective & Celebration	Internal Celebration of wins	Data Leadership
12	Planning for how to maintain and improve Data Culture	Hold meeting for Data Allies and Data Team — What is happening on their teams? What governance should we enforce?	Data Allies Data Team

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Standard citation for this article:

Vanessa Lam, "What's your Data Culture Plan for 2023?" Business Rules Journal, Vol. 24, No. 2, (Feb. 2023)
URL: http://www.brcommunity.com/a2023/c113.html

About our Contributor:

Vanessa Lam Director, BRSdata

As Director of BRSdata, Vanessa Lam created a division within Business Rule Solutions (BRS) to focus on data culture, data accountability, and business intelligence.

Vanessa specializes in building data-driven organizations where operations and leadership understand and trust the data, treat data as a resource, and use data to make day-to-day and strategic decisions.

Previously, she worked at Mastercard as a Manager of Business Insight and Productivity and Optoro as a Manager of Business Intelligence. In these roles, she created educational tools for the organization, fostered data communities, and ensured people used data responsibly.

Ms. Lam's popular articles on data quality and data culture are published regularly in the Business Rules Journal and TDAN (The Data Administration Newsletter). She is a frequent speaker at Enterprise Data World, Building Business Capability Conference, Tableau User Group, and Predictive Analytics World.

She has a Masters of Computer and Information Technology from the University of Pennsylvania and a BSc in Economics from the Wharton School. She was recently named a top influencer to watch in 2021 by IIBA. You can follow her at @Big_On_Data on Twitter.

Read All Articles by Vanessa Lam