CDO Matters Ep. 11 | Modernize Your Data Strategy with Samir Sharma

Our understanding of data and its role within a business isn’t the same as it was 20 years ago. As data leaders embark on a modern data strategy, it is important to continually adapt to change while operating with agility. Malcolm interviews Samir Sharma, the CEO and Founder of datazuum, a data strategy and analytics consulting firm. Samir and Malcolm discuss many of the more significant challenges facing Chief Data Officers (CDOs) as they pursue their strategic priorities, with Samir providing a trove of useful and highly pragmatic guidance for any CDO looking to meet both short-term and longer-term goals. Early in the discussion, they dive into the unhealthy fascination data leaders have on implementing technology without first understanding the business problems it will solve. Malcolm and Samir also share CDOs need to clearly understand their organizations’ existing operating model and their level of data and analytics maturity, as both are critical in defining a data strategy roadmap. Samir shares his framework for working with CDOs whose stated strategic goals require greater maturity but are often starting at ground zero — which involves taking an agile and pragmatic approach to testing the organization’s ability to provide short-term business benefits around certain data use cases within specific engagement models. The conversation then shifts to the importance of the culture of an organization and how that impacts the ability of a CDO to deliver a data strategy. However, unlike more conventional approaches to delivering a data strategy that puts culture change as a dependency for CDO success, Samir makes a compelling argument to work best within the existing culture and find ways to deliver value and speak in a common language without requiring drastic cultural shifts. He outlines how developing a common language and a clear understanding of expected outcomes is key for allowing CDOs to work within the cultural constraints of a given business. Data literacy programs come under the crosshairs of both Samir and Malcolm, where it’s posited that data literacy programs may often be a symptom of larger organizational dysfunctions. Rather than seeing data literacy as the solution, Samir makes a case for a broader focus on having CDOs and their teams more focused on developing knowledge of business processes and where those processes are architected — all with a deep understanding of the importance of data from the ground-up. CDOs focused on defining or executing their data strategies will find this episode of CDO Matters particularly useful, especially those frustrated with the speed or effectiveness of their efforts. This episode makes a compelling case for a more agile, iterative and pragmatic approach to a data strategy that removes major dependencies — such as culture change or a focus on literacy — to one focused on adapting to any existing culture and operating model.