Creating a Data-Driven Culture — Ed Barker // GM Defense

Ed Barker, Data Literacy Lead at GM Defense, explores data-driven culture and governance. Embracing a data-driven culture within an organization is more than just a change in processes or technology. The success of this cultural shift relies heavily on leaders championing the cause through words and actions that align with the envisioned data-driven future. Today, Ed discusses creating a data-driven culture.
About the speaker

Ed Barker

GM Defense

- GM Defense

Ed is Data Literacy Lead at GM Defense

Show Notes

  • 01:47
    Creating a data driven culture for factual decision making
    Organizations must create a culture where everyone feels like they're moving towards the same goal. This requires a cultural shift from emotional to quantitative decision-making, leveraging data to chart the way forward for the organization collectively.
  • 04:02
    The role of leadership in implementing a data driven culture
    Successful implementation of a data-driven culture requires long-term commitment from senior leadership. In addition, it requires aligning hiring practices with the analytical skills required for an organization's culture to be data-driven.
  • 09:19
    Implementing a data driven culture through employee training
    To achieve a data-driven culture, organizations must set aside time to provide on-site training to employees on basic statistics, data lakes, etc. Rather than expecting everyone to become data scientists, its about elevating the literacy of everybody in the organization.
  • 12:26
    Data literacy as a core pillar of a data driven culture
    Committing to data literacy within an organization involves providing training opportunities during work hours, and integrating data literacy into employee evaluations. Essentially, if employees arent data literate, the aim is to get them to that point with the necessary resources.
  • 14:38
    Assessing employee data literacy
    Organizations must conduct assessments to understand their current state of data literacy, identify gaps, and tailor data literacy initiatives. Employees also need to be provided with the tools to help them transition into more analytical and technical roles.
  • 18:31
    How to implement a data driven culture successfully
    Theres no single blueprint for implementing a data-driven culture and organizations must be open to failure. Instead, it requires leadership buy-in and training approaches must be tailored to each department, celebrating data-literacy initiative wins when they happen.

Quotes

  • "Transitioning to a data-driven culture shifts decisions from emotional to factual. I believe that this is the right course to go must be replaced with, after pulling the data, we understand that these are our options." - Ed Barker

  • "Changing to a data-driven culture is a journey, not a 12-month milestone we can check off. Leadership has to lead it through their words and actions and believe that it will benefit the company." - Ed Barker

  • "If we're going to be a data-driven organization, we have to set aside time to elevate the literacy of everybody in the organization. Its not about making everybody a data scientist, but making people aware of what is possible." - Ed Barker

  • "Every capability is going to take on transitioning to a data-driven culture differently. As you break down data literacy to different capabilities, you're going to have to address each capability differently." - Ed Barker

  • "When groups use your courses knowledge to communicate effectively with IT and data science to develop a solution that saves the organization 1000s or millions of dollars, that's a huge win and those things must be celebrated." - Ed Barker

About the speaker

Ed Barker

GM Defense

- GM Defense

Ed is Data Literacy Lead at GM Defense

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