Data Bootcamp requires safety catch skills

Data grows. The creation and encapsulation of digitized information moves forward, forward, upward and outward in a perpetually expanding spiral and burgeoning journey.

Thinking about what to do with data in the future usually leads IT vendors to make relatively unavoidable comments. These comments fall into the broad brush category of platitudes of predictable assumptions. Spokespeople love to talk about all companies becoming data-driven organizations, the need to democratize data literacy across sectors, and the need to understand why data is a company’s strongest asset is. .

Perhaps more interesting are technology professionals who are more inclined to talk about how data is used at the core practical level. There is a clear and urgent need to find parts of the business where data models and datasets can be reused without reinventing the wheel each time.

swing to data value

Another way of saying this is understanding the value of your data.

Satyen Sangani, CEO and co-founder of data management and analytics company Alation, said: [data-driven decision-making focused] Organizations navigate through economic uncertainty. ”

Don’t hold your breath, Sangani suggests that we’ll be hearing less and less about tired, banal initiatives for “innovation” over and over again. Indeed, we need to move beyond innovation to return on investment (ROI). Because we’ve already been there and we’ve talked about it. Now you need to know what value your business is getting from your data.

In other words, an IT project with no rows of data values ​​in the spreadsheet simply won’t get funding.

Clearly, this means enabling data democracy and enabling so-called citizen data scientists, but we need to do this carefully and avoid delegating too much power on two levels. there is. b) by trying to shift too much responsibility off of professional data scientists (and indeed businessmen) and simply “expecting” relatively average users to come up with answers.

Despite these caveats, Sangani still insists the platform should be built for non-technical data users. “Break down silos by connecting everything, making it easy to adopt and engaging, and empowering everyone to find, understand and use data collaboratively, regardless of role. Platforms that don’t enforce decent data governance and data democratization will become obsolete,” he said.

The rise of data bootcamps

Sangani’s colleague John Wills is the field CTO at Alation. Wills suggests that 2023 will see a big push for data democracy, and he uses the term bootcamp to describe what could (or should probably) happen now. ) is explained.

“In addition to a greater emphasis on data literacy, next year [2023] This year will be the year of data bootcamp. Organizations are increasingly turning to external data training services to upskill their workforce, increase the importance of data, create an engaging data culture, and at the same time improve the overall quality of their data workforce. Helpful. ”

What is a data bootcamp? As suggested, this could be a skills initiative day where employees receive hands-on training on how to use data analysis tools. Users are tasked with solving problems created on the basis of dummy data, looking for patterns, trends, outliers, and flags to use information tools more deeply and ultimately applying them to their own workplace challenges. can be made applicable to After using blank weapons in boot camp, it seems that it’s time to release the employees into the field with live ammunition.

To achieve this, there are many more warnings, rules, conditions and restrictions. Especially given the reality of “massive retirements” due to Covid and employees continuing to work from home. This means that more data is processed remotely, sometimes at the dining table in the kitchen.

According to Alation’s Wills, as he previously stated here, “This high turnover rate is already being exploited to lose talented employees and the critical institutional knowledge that often accompanies them. Replacing lost information with employees is difficult, if not impossible, for organizations that do not have strong data retention systems in place. As they seek to avoid loss, more and more people will turn to data intelligence platforms that can store, organize, and present critical knowledge to mitigate the business impact of employee loss.”

MORE CONTROL, CLEAN KILLS

There’s a reason I use the terms open battlefield and live ammunition (above). Advancing towards the value of data (in this analogy, perhaps this represents a clean kill?) and earning the flag requires compliance with data regulations and funding away from data innovation. We have to think about how to strike a balance. .

From an industry perspective, automation can help a lot here. The Alation team reminds us that so many powerful data access and security controls are automated today, and have been for some time. However, data governance automation promises to blend existing automated operations with data governance policy creation, allowing data teams to focus on business innovation without exposing the business to attack. they say.

Again, sounds great on paper, but how dangerous can automatic weapons become in the wrong hands? A mission is a data value, everyone is issued with combat fatigue, some powerful weapons, and a set of field provisions.

So who brought the map and the safety catch is on?