There is a famous saying in the data world which is "garbage in, garbage out" but how do you know what isn't garbage? This final article in our three-part series on building healthy data culture provides three steps to ensure your organisation is measuring what matters.
Think strategically
The first step in gathering meaningful data is determining what is important to your organisation. What are your organisation's goals? What needs to be done to reach these goals? What things can you impact to reach these goals? The answers to these questions relate to the three categories of meaningful data, indicators, metrics, and dimensions.
Indicators
Metrics
Dimensions
Documenting how your metrics and indicators relate to one another, who is responsible for each metric, and how dimensions will be used to drive action ensures you are aiming to collect meaningful data.
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Look in the obvious places
Once you know what data is valuable to your organisation, you can start to think about how to source it. Most meaningful data can be found within the software, sensors and surveys used within your organisation:
Software
CRM tools, project management tools, operational monitoring tools, etc. contain a wealth of operational data. Most modern software solutions provide access to this data enabling your analytics team to automatically pull the information already being collected by your organisation into dashboards, their analysis and for automating other processes. Software solutions can also be configured to collect additional data which you have determined is valuable.
Sensors
Temperature sensors, pressure sensors and cameras are becoming more common within manufacturing and monitoring processes as the Internet of Things becomes more accessible. Collecting this type of data does not require manual input making it more reliable and faster to use.
Surveys
Customer satisfaction surveys or employee satisfaction surveys are a quick way of gathering meaningful data. The Net Performance Score is a common metric used to measure customer satisfaction. It can be used to benchmark performance against other organisations in similar industries and markets.
Beyond the obvious, data vendors like Equifax and Experian sell data. For instance, customer information (i.e., their social economic status, age, gender, etc.) can be purchased to assist targeted marketing. Likewise open data sources provide free access to data collected elsewhere. Doing a quick online search for "open data APIs" and your area of interest will show if meaningful data for your organisation has shared. The programmable web has collated a list of open data APIs. Likewise, the UK Government has shared a catalogue of their public sector APIs, some of which you can utilise free of charge providing you meet their licensing and access requirements.
Aim for "good-enough"
So how do you know if the data you've gathered is good enough? The data must be of a high enough quality to be acted upon, but it does not have to be perfect. Unhealthy data cultures can form aiming for perfect data. Either they are stuck trying to collect this data, unwilling to act on anything else; or are spending more money creating perfect data than the insights from this data can generate. Consider the cost, effort and time required to gather data and balance this against its value.
According to the Data Management Association (DAMA), data quality is defined by its completeness, uniqueness, consistency, timeliness, validity, and accuracy. We can make do with incomplete data, remove duplication and enforce rules to ensure data is consistent and valid. However, in addition to accuracy and timeliness it must be relevant, unbiased, and legal.
Relevant
Unbiased
Legal
Continue Reading
We hope these tips help you gather meaningful data to propel your organisation towards its goals. If you have more tips or would like to share some more links to open data sources, please comment below. And if you'd like our help building a healthy data culture in your organisation, get in touch today.
