VIDEO | Insight Partners CDO and CMU Heinz College Adjunct Faculty: Support Business People as Much as the Technical Side

(US and Canada) Christopher Stephens, Chief Data Officer in Residence at Insight Partners and Adjunct Faculty at CMU Heinz College, speaks with Robert Lutton, Vice President at Sandhill Consultants and Editorial Board Vice Chair at CDO Magazine, about how to leverage data governance and data activation to make informed decisions and how to foster an environment where people and technology work together to facilitate data-driven decisions.

Stephen begins by contending that organizations can actively engage in metadata by finding a valuable use case and dealing with smaller initiatives initially. He recommends data leaders focus on connecting the advantages that active metadata brings to people within the organization.

Delving further, Stephens recalls the data governance program he carried out at American Eagle, where they used an example that was not fully active metadata but closely resembled it. The team had difficulty merchandising items on the website because the metadata was not mapped in the systems, he adds.

Thereafter, the team conveyed the importance of the data governance program and created a story to demonstrate to the e-commerce site merchandising team why metadata matters. Stephens shares that they further used the story to effectively display to other teams how organizational wants are tied to the management of metadata.

Moving forward, Stephens emphasizes two essential elements regarding data activation, with the first being that data professionals find delight in innovative ideas and the second being data itself. He references an Insight Partners article concerning the 'new stack' and AI while noting Martin Casado and his diagram detailing the modern data stack.

Stephens cautions data experts against a solely internal focus when building the capabilities and functionality of the stack, deeming the 'emerging category of activation' to be ultimately why the data stack exists. He asserts the stack itself does not matter, whether it is the modern data stack, cloud-based, or in-house.

In addition, he emphasizes that using legacy technologies or even a mix of older and newer technologies can be the right solution for the problem at hand. Further, the focus should be on using data to make decisions that drive value for the business and its customers.

According to Stephens, organizations are advancing towards a future where most of the decisions will be made by an automated machine. He explains that the process does not necessitate using artificial intelligence but still involves a machine interacting with a customer or another system and making decisions for them. He maintains that although building systems and processes to help people make more informed decisions is critical, organizations should know this is not the ultimate goal.

Furthermore, Stephens emphasizes the importance of people in making decisions. To enable growth and maturity to take hold, Chief Data Officers and technology workers must ensure that they support people as much as the technical side. To ensure the success of analytical tools, he suggests that business people should be literate, trained, and helped to understand more complex data. He believes businesses cannot move straight to decision-making based on automated tools without having people go along.

In conclusion, he points to the need for businesses to invest in training their teams to understand and trust the data and respond accordingly. Overall, people and technology must work together to ensure successful operations.

CDO Magazine appreciates Christopher Stephens for sharing his invaluable insights with our global community.

See more from Christopher Stephens 

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