Starting with a data strategy roadmap can help you drive the program forward and realise your investment, now and in the future. To build a data strategy roadmap, you’ll need:

A defined data strategy:

If you don’t have a data strategy in place, your organisation will struggle to leverage data in support of its transformation efforts. “If you haven’t got control of your data in the first place, you run the risk of your digital transformation failing,” added Last. Without a strategy, it’s difficult to know where your data is coming from, the type of data you have, and what you can do with it. A data strategy goes beyond the data. A well-defined strategy outlines the people, processes, and technologies your organisation needs to leverage data and achieve business goals.

Data management plan:

Once you have a strategy in place, you need to define how you will manage your data. “If you haven’t gotten a handle on what you’ve got, then you lose the ability to have nice, user-friendly workflows that allow you to do something useful with that data. You end up just putting lipstick on a pig,” said Last. An effective data management plan will support your digital transformation and allow you to define how to manage, secure, and use your data throughout its complete lifecycle and access meaningful data to propel business objectives forward.

Change management:

For digital transformation initiatives to be successful, they require a culture transformation too. Data needs to be a part of your organisation’s overall strategy, and that means creating a culture that promotes and embraces it. A truly data-driven culture invests in the right talent, improves data literacy across the organisation, and provides the tools and frameworks needed to enable the culture to thrive. Have a plan in place to effectively communicate your data strategy, get buy-in early and often, and make sure to brief team members on why data is important.