CDO Matters Ep. 14 | MVP Data Strategy for CDOs

First impressions are everything. As a brand-new CDO, it is important to hit the ground running with a data strategy that pinpoints key use cases and quickly delivers value within an organization. In our 14th episode, Malcolm shares his perspectives on the top deliverable for most CDOs: the definition and execution of a corporate data strategy. He outlines his model for a ‘Data Strategy Minimum Viable Product’ (MVP), which embraces a highly iterative and pragmatic approach to defining and executing a strategy. This approach starkly contrasts more traditional approaches which often take years to deliver any business value. Rather than separating a strategy’s definition from its execution, the Data Strategy MVP deeply interconnects the execution with the ongoing evolution of the data strategy — where CDOs can earn the right to change corporate cultures or operating models by delivering business value rather than management edict. Malcolm argues that forcing a business to wait years — or even several months before it will realize any benefits of a data strategy — is a key reason for shortened CDO tenures. While a typical approach to a data strategy would involve 6-12 months of business analyses and requirements gathered across an entire enterprise before actually executing a strategy, the Data Strategy MVP hinges on a razor-sharp focus on quickly identifying a few key business outcomes. This is quickly followed by the definition and execution of a data strategy specifically to address those limited sets of outcomes. By repeatedly focusing on a small set of outcomes, organizations can successfully execute a holistic data strategy. Malcolm also dives into how taking a more tactical and results-driven approach to implementing a data strategy requires a strong data leader who can balance longer-term needs — such as defining an adaptable technology architecture or the right governance model — against short-term needs. Finding this balance will not be easy but is necessary to ensure short-term decisions do not compromise the ability to fully align the data to the business strategy in the long haul. Another key to the Data Strategy MVP — as outlined in the shared model — is the acknowledgment of the several business characteristics that CDOs cannot change in the short term. These include the data culture, corporate operating models and overall data and analytics maturity level. While more traditional strategy approaches would place changes to these things as strategic dependencies, Malcolm instead argues they should be considered more as constraints. This helps guide decisions on the best business outcomes the evolving strategy should be focused on in the immediate future. CDOs who have been tasked to execute a data strategy should find this episode of CDO Matters highly useful — especially those concerned that too much of a focus on data strategy is hampering their ability to deliver value. Newer CDOs unfamiliar with more agile approaches to program management will also benefit from this episode — as will those aspiring CDOs who are looking to make an impact for their business partners by finding ways to bring value in more iterative ways.