Data Literacy Is the Most Important Building Block for Data Strategy — North Dakota Information Technology CDO

(US & Canada) Kim Weis, Chief Data Officer at North Dakota Information Technology, speaks with Bob Audet, Partner, Digital Solutions - Data at Guidehouse, in a video interview about the impact of data literacy on the statewide data strategy and how state agencies can initiate their data literacy programs.

Speaking about the impact of data literacy on realizing the statewide data strategy, Weis says that having been an epidemiologist, she already had a good understanding of data and its value. As she moved through her career across agencies and other program areas, she worked with talented people successful in their chosen career fields, but data literacy often wasn't a part of their formal education or professional development program.

Weis states that data literacy is a requirement for every role across the data life cycle. Data creators need to understand their role and why data quality is so important. Similarly, the executive leadership needs to understand how to use data.

Investing in data education and awareness wasn't prioritized by organizations earlier in Weis’ career as they viewed data from a transactional perspective. As analytics and strategic use of data started taking shape, it heightened the need for data education. Weis even mentions data literacy as the single most important foundational building block for any data strategy.

Weis emphasizes the importance of resident well-being, aiming for them to achieve their best with the help of quality data from the very beginning. In developing the data strategy, Weis and their team collaborated with stakeholders to identify four priority work streams. Among these, data literacy and fostering a data-literate culture are critical for the success of any data-related initiatives.

When asked about who state CDOs should be partnering with within their organizations for successful data literacy programs, Weis mentions partnering closely with the human resource management services that provided a learning platform. While they provided the technology, Weis’ team developed the content.

Elaborating further, Weis says that the goal was to start a spark and get things moving so that agencies can run it themselves internally and start building it into their own culture.

CDO Magazine appreciates Kim Weis for sharing insights on her data strategy with our global community.