You may have heard the term Data literacy but what does it really mean? Gartner defines data literacy as the ability to read, write and communicate data in context, including an understanding of data sources and constructs, analytical methods and techniques applied, and the ability to describe the use case, application and resulting value.
While your organisation might be amidst a data platform transformation or maturing its business intelligence capabilities and solutions, one key element need not be ignored, the organisation’s own data culture and literacy. No matter how advanced your data platform is, or how rich and accurate your data sources and models are, to have a successful data practice your employees and the culture around data needs to be upskilled and updated as well.
To achieve the benefits and promise your new data platform and solutions your employees’ ability to understand the data, its source and meaning including common business definitions and understanding the different ways to calculate KPIs and the various reporting structures. So, as part of your data transformation programme and without one the first step would be to evaluate your organisation baseline data literacy, we at DEC assist our customers to do so utilising specialised surveys and interviews. Once a baseline has been established a data literacy training programme needs to be setup to ensure gaps are covered and new skills are acquired.
Should your organisation decide to run a data literacy programme in parallel to a data transformation one covering technology and processes it is imperative to consider the organisation’s baseline and ensure the transformation programme keep in mind the importance of building and strengthening both data literacy and culture. Digital Evolution Consulting (DEC) is happy to initiate a conversation about your data challenges and share our experience and ideas.
To initiate a discussion reach out to one of our specialists here.