Should you democratize your data to the entire business?
Data democratization is a popular approach in many enterprises with the goal of making their business more data driven. These organizations give a wide range of their people access to data with the expectation that this will result in more insights, new ideas and innovation.
Data democratization done right can truly change your business and how you operate. It empowers your people with data so they can make better informed decisions that lead to great outcomes and drive improvements where previously there was only intuition and ‘we’ve always done it this way’.
The question I want to explore here is whether data democratization is an all or nothing approach and what considerations need to be taken into account.
My short answer here is everyone who has been trained to work with data. It’s not necessarily as simple as ‘everyone’ because training is an essential part of the entire process. More on that in the next section.
You most likely have a lot of people in your business who are working with data every single day. They may not consider themselves data people or analysts, but they use data to analyze results and identify the appropriate course of action for part of your business.
They could be policy analysts at a regulator reviewing data submitted by entities as part of the regulatory process. They might look for anomalies, for errors and for thresholds that have not been reached or have been crossed.
Similarly, they could be marketing managers checking the results of a recent campaign to understand response rates from target audiences. They look at data comparing audience engagement with different types of advertisements. Or click-through rates for email campaigns.
Or they’re running a farming business, analyzing their crop yields to identify the impact of using more sustainable, environmentally friendly pesticides and fertilizers.
All of these people are working with data and are using it to form conclusions that influence their next decisions and recommendations.
It’s important to consider how data literate your people are. In the course of their career and training, how much did they learn about data, analysis and statistics? Working with data goes beyond understanding specific data points and does require at least foundational knowledge of statistical analysis, probabilities, and how to correctly communicate information.
So when I suggest that to be able to work with data, people should have completed some sort of training, what I mean is that it is important and prudent to ensure people have the right skills before you take your data democratization any further.
So let’s talk about training. When we look at democratizing anything, there is usually some sort of training involved.
Before we let people drive cars on the road, they complete theory tests, ensuring they know the rules. We also make them pass a practical driving test to ensure they know how to handle the car on the road, in traffic.
Before we let people vote for political parties and representatives, we require them to be 18 (in most places), which means they would have gained life experience and school education to make informed choices.
Most of you reading this have probably enjoyed some level of data education during your professional career or college/university years. Many of your colleagues may not have, so let’s ensure they are equipped with the right skills.
I recommend establishing a formal, but not cumbersome set of training courses that form part of people’s professional development in your organization. I deliberately say ‘not cumbersome’ because I find that as soon as I mention things like documentation, formalizing processes, etc., reluctance builds because of the perceived bureaucratic effort, the maintenance required, etc.
There are effective ways of giving your people access to formal training without requiring a new internal department or a higher workload for your HR team.
