USCIS CDO: I'm a Good Listener

(US and Canada) Elizabeth Puchek, Chief Data Officer at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), speaks with Donna Roy, Strategic Advisor for the National Security Segment at Guidehouse, in a video interview about her journey as a data leader, critical leadership traits, driving data literacy, and the need for building relationships.

Puchek has a background in architectural engineering which helped her understand how things work and be thoughtful about design. She expresses her passion for helping others solve challenges. Her love for puzzles came in handy while designing renovations for the National Institute of Health campus and supporting border security acquisition while working with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (USCBP).

It was also at CBP where Puchek was exposed to the early days of federal enterprise architecture, data modeling, and data-informed decision-making. She says that this foundation served her well while she was leading the development of the first USCIS data strategy.

Speaking about a leadership trait foundational to her success, Puchek says that she is a good listener. She mentions going on listening tours across each of the different offices in USCIS and quickly learning how data was critical to every facet of the mission and mission support. The tours also helped her establish relationships with people with different perspectives and different needs. She adds that being open-minded without an agenda is also foundational.

Puchek then goes on to speak about data literacy and how she breaks down the approach into six personas that have specific backgrounds, job requirements, competencies, and skills. She states that it is her responsibility to help everyone understand how to use data to make their jobs and lives easier. It requires targeted outreach and tailored messaging to understand the needs of each of the personas. They include:

• Adjudicators or people making the decisions on immigration benefits
• Data analysts in every office across the agency
• Supervisors of adjudicators and analysts
• Mission Support
• Leadership
• Data architects

Speaking further on the topic of literacy, she urges data leaders to start with the organization’s leadership. Lack of leadership buy-in makes it difficult to get buy-in from others and the required resources.

Further, Puchek urges new CDOs to build strong relationships with their peers to gain valuable advice, share experiences, and avoid reinventing the wheel. She also suggests they balance big and small efforts because getting quick wins is the fastest way to build credibility and establish partnerships.

Concluding the conversation, Puchek speaks about the challenges faced by the government CDO community. She says that most government CDOs are faced with a lot of expectations and it is difficult to deliver them without the required resources.

As an example, she mentions that partnerships with CISOs on zero trust can be very fruitful but they are resource intensive and require a lot of time and attention.

CDO Magazine appreciates Elizabeth Puchek for sharing her insights and data success stories with our global community.

Disclaimer: This video/podcast and related materials do not constitute an endorsement of Guidehouse Inc. or any other non-federal entity. The opinions, anecdotes, and any other comments made by the presenter or interviewee do not represent any position of Guidehouse Inc. or of the United States Government, the Department of Defense, or other components of the United States Government whether official or unofficial. Any opinions, anecdotes, and any other comments made by the presenter or interviewee are their own and are made in their personal capacity alone.