Five steps towards a supported data strategy

How do you recognize the value of data?

How can you ensure that you recognize the value of data within your organization and use it? The answer is simple: solid data management within your Enterprise Architecture, i.e. the blueprint that describes and manages your organization’s structure and operations for the long term. An important part of data management is a supported data strategy. This is necessary to maximize the value of data across the span of your organization and avoid data silos. But how do you establish such a strategy?

The 5-step data strategy plan

At 2-cnnct, we work together with your project team using a 5-step plan to develop a data strategy that provides the vision for the organization’s optimal (cloud) application landscape. We carefully guide each step, to give the organization the tools to maximize the long-term value of data.

Step 1 – Preparing a vision for data management

In practice, we find that the vision of data management within the various disciplines of an organization can vary greatly. This can negatively affect support for the data strategy. People often disagree about the importance of data management and its feasibility. In addition, change within organizations always causes friction. To get everyone on the same page, we organize a vision workshop, in which we use examples of best practices and project objectives to create a shared view on data management within the organization. This step is crucial for the continued success of the project.

Step 2 – Data Management Maturity Assessment

We always begin the development of a data strategy by determining the organization’s current level of data management maturity across the various departments. We do this through a Data Management Maturity Assessment. At a low maturity level, an organization’s applications are not connected, and data is in silos. At a high maturity level, all applications communicate with each other – regardless of exactly where the data resides in an organization – and the data provides valuable insights for business operations. By understanding the maturity level, we create a baseline and can set long- and short-term goals.

Step 3 – Workshop around data strategy

To map the processes, systems, and data within an organization, we organize an interactive for the relevant stakeholders. During this fit-gap analysis, we identify the gap between the current state of the organization and the desired state. This clarifies what is needed to achieve the objectives. An important part of the workshop is identifying the data owners and the data stewards, with the stewards being responsible for the day-to-day management of the data. The data owners, in turn, are responsible for making decisions regarding the data.

Step 4 – Developing a data strategy

With the output of the workshop, we can develop a data strategy that achieves the objectives within the framework of the Enterprise Architecture. In doing so, we concretize the steps to success and lay the foundation for future growth. Depending on the maturity level of the organization, a data strategy can be implemented incrementally within an organization.

Step 5 – Ensuring support

In the last step, the data strategy is not presented by us, but by the stakeholders within the organization itself. After all, it is up to them to carry out the strategy and continue to ensure sufficient support.

Getting started with your data strategy?

Does our approach appeal to you and would you like to meet us? Get in touch with us. Schedule an introductory meeting here or leave your details below and we will get back to you.