A Guide For CDO Success In 2022

Whether they are focused on developing a corporate foresight capability, accelerating data monetization or generating competitive advantage through AI-enhanced products and services, the chief data officer (CDO) in 2022 will be looked to for leadership in helping their organization succeed in the digital economy. This is probably one of the hardest jobs — if not the hardest job — in the company, and here’s how to win at it:

1. Set up a talent incubator.

The next crop of data talent out there is insanely good. However, organizations currently are bottlenecked at the data ingestion stage, as there just doesn’t seem to be enough qualified data engineers, analysts and scientists to go around. The result is wage inflation, attrition and stress. The answer? Talent incubation.

Data engineering has not been a focus for academia, which is why organizations need to develop avenues for young talent to come in, learn to apply this skill and unlock the rest of their toolkits from the data science and analysis realm. Rotational apprenticeships can be appealing to soon-to-be data program graduates who don’t know for sure what they want to do yet. In fact, we’ve started our own data apprenticeship for this reason.

2. Plug into the ESG dashboard.

In my previous article, I discussed the carbon impact of enterprise technology. This is the conduit through which CDOs can enter a boardroom conversation surrounding the environmental, social and governance (ESG) dynamic of the organization and how it can be measured, tracked and acted upon. While business intelligence can be a difficult effort to demonstrate return on investment (ROI) for, the collection and collation of ESG metrics is a surefire way to add value to executives in 2022.

In 2019, thousands of workers pledged to walk out of the offices of Amazon, Google, Twitter and Microsoft to demand their employers do more to reduce carbon emissions. Your top employees could likely leave (or, at the very least, suffer lower engagement levels) if company ESG performance is poor. A dashboard that contains ESG parameters combined with employee engagement data can be a useful tool for the executives of 2022 and beyond.

3. Define data enablement metrics.

News flash: No one measures the time it takes them to make a decision. Reduced “time to decision” is an enticing metric, but it’s not actually measurable. Dashboard utilization is a slightly better metric, but it doesn’t mean they enjoyed the experience or thought it was useful. Requests for dashboard access and dashboard reuse can be more meaningful, as one can infer a certain degree of word-of-mouth and, thus, some measure of utility is occurring. Beyond this, we have the option of explicitly asking: “Are you satisfied with your data analytics/business intelligence service? One to 10, would you recommend?” Depending on survey fatigue, you may want to avoid this route also.

Attributing a dollar value to the organization’s data is becoming more popular. With this formula in place, you have the basis for a benchmark. Alternatively, looking at new revenue associated with digital/data products is another avenue. Likely, the simplest option is to take a tally of all the business benefits expected in the major data projects in flight.

There is no perfect answer, but stakeholders want to know how they’d determine a digital transformation is going well halfway through, and they need help.

4. Meet demand further upstream.

As the saying goes, “The best way to predict your future is to create it.”

Organizations that have been sitting on reserves of monetizable data are now looking to act — and fast. A key issue is many of these projects are inherently exploratory in nature, as business unit leaders aren’t always sure of the value of the data nor the insight that can be derived from it.

Getting ahead of the demand curve is incredibly important, as these projects can live or die depending on the expectations of their sponsors. Proactively reaching out to business unit leaders and participating in data project origination can help not only define requirements sooner but can also lead to better project outcomes. The thinking here is that if you are more proactive about eliciting project requirements, you will be less likely to have a set of unrealistic expectations dumped on you.

5. Establish a horizon scanning function.

What can you do to get those busy business unit leaders to pay attention to you? Produce something that is worth their time and attention.

Horizon scanning is an activity that involves continuously exploring your environment for signals of change. In a business context, that means looking out for new examples of technology being used to positively impact success — ideally in a way that is related or analogous to a particular business unit.

The signals collected should be packaged in a presentable fashion and delivered with a directional narrative. Think of it as a trend report that is prepared internally by the IT team focused on a particular line of business. Deliver these reports as presentations, and use them as a catalyst for project ideation.

6. Become a design powerhouse.

Finally, as organizations become more product-oriented, data teams must develop the complementary skills that enable these structures to succeed. Good IT strategies feature goals focused on integration, collaboration, data-driven decision-making and efficiency. Great IT strategies feature customer and employee experience targets as well.

A good observational study not only elicits important pain points and problems to solve but also affords the ability to build meaningful relationships and cross-collaboration opportunities. For those who are more advanced in the design realm already, it may be time to start experimenting with more advanced techniques and tools such as “gigamapping” — a systems design approach that helps elicit the connections between silos — to develop cross-project insight.

While the CDO of 2022 has their work cut out for them, I’d also argue that it’s one of the most rewarding places to be within a modern organization. The tasks above, while challenging, offer the opportunity to add value — and potentially even have some fun while doing it.

[ This article originally appeared on Forbes.com - Link ]