What is Data Culture?

First, let’s define what is culture: “The set of shared values, goals, and practices that characterizes a group of people” Source

Now building on top of that for defining data culture, What are set of shared values? Decisions will be made based on insights generated through data. And also, group of people represent all decision makers in the organization. So in other words:

An org that has a great data culture will have a group of decision makers that uses data & insights to make decisions.

Why is building data culture important?

There are two ways to make decisions: one that uses data and one that doesn’t. My hypothesis is that decisions made through data are less wrong. To make this happen in your org, you need to have a plan. In the sections below, i’ll share key ingredients and mental model to build a data culture.

What are the ingredients for a successful data culture?

It’s 3 P’s: Platform, Process and People and continuously iterating and improving each of the P’s to improve data culture.

How to build data culture?

Here’s a mental model for a leader within an org:

1. Understand data needs and prioritize
2. Hire the right people
3. Set team goals and define success
4. Build something that people use
5. Iterate on the data product and make it better
6. Launch and communicate broadly
7. Provide Training & Support
8. Celebrate wins and communicate progress against goals
9. Continue to build and identify next set of data needs

Disclaimer: The opinions are my own and don’t represent my employer’s view.