Data Strategy and the Enterprise Data Executive: Ensuring that Business and IT are in Synch in the Post-Big Data Era

Pervasive, data is a unique organizational resource, and this distinction warrants its own strategy. Data, representing your single non-depletable, non-degradable, durable strategic asset, is likely also your most poorly leveraged and underutilized organizational asset.

Lack of talent, barriers in organizational thinking, and seven specific data sins prevent most organizations from benefiting fully from their data asset investments. Solving these prerequisites will allow your organization to:

• Improve your organization's data;
• Improve the way your people use data; and
• Improve the way your people use data to achieve your organizational strategy.

This method better focuses data and thinking in direct support of strategic objectives. After eliminating necessary prerequisites, organizations can develop a disciplined and repeatable means of improving their data, literacy, standards, and controls using data governance practices. Once in place, the process (based on the theory of constraints) becomes a variant of lather, rinse, and repeat. Several complementary concepts covered include:

• An overview of data strategy prerequisites;
• A repeatable process for identifying and removing data constraints;
• Why data strategy is necessary for effective data governance;
• Balancing operational results with capability development;
• An objective definition of data-centric thinking; and
• Ways to monetize these efforts.

Peter Aiken is acknowledged to be a top data management (DM) authority. As a practicing data manager, consultant, author, and researcher, he has been actively performing and studying DM for more than thirty years. His expertise has been sought by some of the world's most important organizations, and his achievements have been recognized internationally. He has held leadership positions and consulted with more than 150 organizations in 27 countries across numerous industries, including intelligence, defense, banking, healthcare, telecommunications, and manufacturing. He is a sought-after keynote speaker and author of multiple publications, including his popular The Case for the Chief Data Officer and Monetizing Data Management, and he hosts the longest running and most successful webinar dedicated to data management. Peter is the Founding Director of Data Blueprint, a consulting firm that helps organizations leverage data for competitive advantage and operational efficiencies. He is also an Associate Professor of Information Systems at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), past President of the International Data Management Association (DAMA-I), and Associate Director of the MIT International Society of Chief Data Officers.

Todd Harbour is the Chief Data Officer (CDO) for New York State, where he orchestrates work to design and implement a data management regime. Todd's work includes developing a data governance strategy, framework, and roadmap; defining a unified information architecture; realizing master data; coordinating data sharing; and establishing a state-wide data analytics community of practice. Prior to this role, Todd was a senior federal government official based in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. While there, he led work to establish data strategies, business frameworks, and data management platforms, which helped provide a reliable basis for answering questions from Congress and organizational leaders.