Where am I :)

Where am I?

So you have a new role or task to implement Data Literacy framework.   Your manager congratulates you and you walk out with high expectations but what do you do first.

When this happened to me or happens to me at a new client.   The first thing I do is review the requirements I received when talking to the leadership about the role / opportunity and build a simple one slide presentation. Then schedule a short 30 minutes with several leaders, data stewards, subject mater experts and / or key organizational influencers. In this meeting you will want to socialize the concept you have and ask their valued input.   Ask what do they think or how do they think this will help.

After you have gathered that data you will want to create an assessment for the larger organization.   Be sure to get the proper approval and leadership sponsorship for this assessment.   There are many resources online to help you build your data literacy assessment and even chatGPT can be of value. Always ask at the end of your assessment open feedback.   Prior to this question all questions should be quantitative.

Data Literacy maturity model.  DataCamp and Gartner have good resources to help you execute a maturity model survey.    I believe a maturity model is more specific and should be a small collaborative group from IT, Accounting, Finance, Operations and Data Governance.   The key is to have IT and your Data Science group involved and at least one business category.   This will help provide a better baseline of your data literacy maturity.

So now you have data from interviews, assessments, and your maturity model to better understand the current state. In your meeting with leadership, you should ask what does “good” look like or what is our goal with data literacy.

Based on this you plan how to bridge the gap.   You have many resources available to help but two critical resources will be a Data Governance framework and a good learning management system (LMS) to offload the education and tracking.   When I first started in Data Literacy, I developed several courses or borrowed courses from universities now you can get this done for you by connecting with companies like DataCamp and Data Science Dojo.

Measuring your progress will be critical to you and the organization.  You should always be ready when someone asks, “how is our data literacy program doing” with a numeric value and not a subjective comment like, “its going well”. I would rather say that we are at 30% of our target or 90% of our goal and be able to explain why. 

To summarize in steps:

1.    Review Requirements and Create Presentation:

1. • Understand the requirements communicated by leadership.

   • Build a simple one-slide presentation outlining the proposed Data Literacy framework.

2. Engage Stakeholders:

2. • Schedule a 30-minute meeting with leaders, data stewards, subject matter experts, and key influencers.

   • Socialize the concept and gather input on how it will benefit the organization.

3. Create an Assessment:

3. • Obtain proper approval and leadership sponsorship for the assessment.

   • Use online resources to build a data literacy assessment.

   • Collect quantitative data and open feedback to understand the current state.

4. Data Literacy Maturity Model:

4. • Utilize resources from DataCamp and Gartner for a maturity model survey.

   • Form a small collaborative group including IT, Accounting, Finance, Operations, Data Governance, and at least one business category.

5. Understand Current State:

5. • Analyze data from interviews, assessments, and the maturity model.

   • In meetings with leadership, clarify the organization's goals with data literacy.

6. Bridge the Gap:

6. • Develop a plan to bridge the gap between the current state and the desired goals.

   • Utilize resources like a Data Governance framework and a Learning Management System (LMS) for education and tracking.

7. Measure Progress:

7. • Establish measurable metrics to track progress.

   • Be prepared to provide numeric values when reporting on the status of the data literacy program.

Resources:

Your_Organization-s_Guide_to_Data_Maturity.pdf (ctfassets.net)