Angela Merkel’s recently published memoir Freedom arrives at a pivotal moment for organizational leadership. As Yascha Mounk notes in his recent Financial Times analysis, Merkel’s legacy reveals how competent management can coexist with systemic failure. This paradox resonates deeply in today’s digital transformation landscape.
Read MoreMany organizations have recognized the need to enhance their data management capabilities. The traditional response has been to centralize these efforts, often by appointing a Chief Data Officer (CDO). However, this well-intentioned approach often leads to challenges and resistance within the organization.
Read MoreA little while ago, I chatted with Gartner Analyst David Pidsely about a trend I noticed in the job market. It seemed the last 2-3 years, data strategy and governance roles suddenly required coding experience.
It wasn’t my imagination, he confirmed. In 2023, skills and talent shortage were the number one inhibitor to CDAO success. Hiring managers and recruiters have been packing job descriptions with coding skills that don’t always require them.
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n driving data projects, I find people underestimate the impact of scoping projects effectively.
Too often, you see technology leads with new platforms or tools looking for a problem to solve, or business leads with a unique one-off request from an executive reporting forum carry over to a data team as a priority requirement, whether it is or not.
With tell-me features and AI Tools, we forget the importance of and lose ambidexterity skills like managing details and thinking strategically. Additionally, the emphasis used to be on being able to talk to the box and not the people; now, we must reason with the box (and the people). Skills cultivating engaged stakeholders and executive sponsors weren’t emphasized as much but are now increasingly important. Those are radically different skills!
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Image Credit: https://www.jhaiho.com/tattoo-designs/
Writing a book is a lot like getting a tattoo. It’s permanent. It marks a life transition. It's also 95% pain, 2.5% novelty, and 2.5% talking that novelty to others. It's proof I was able to push past the anxiety and deal with the pain to do something creative. Finishing is a wonderful feeling of accomplishment, proof that I made it past all the barriers.
Driving Data Projects is, first and foremost, a love letter to my students. The book highlights two main stumbling blocks they hit: understanding the data supply chain and their role in it and integrating key change management activities like working with executive sponsorship. I also observed these issues outside of the classroom--in almost every organization I've served. Everyone skins their knees on these issues--because they are hard.
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