Building a culture of data

Having a culture of data means that:

• Data is integral and central to your day to day operations and isn’t just an afterthought.
• Data is embedded and part of your organization's identity.

Building data culture and data literacy is hard and does not happen overnight. It is a long and, often, ardous process. There are no shortcuts. There will be a lot of stumbling blocks and learning experiences along the way but both the journey and destination are worth it.

Along the way, an organization hoping to build a culture of data and build data literacy must:

1. Use data as evidence.

• Data, when used as evidence, can lead to better and non-arbitrary policies and decisions.
• Evidence-based decision-making requires:
  • a sound theory
  • a coherent set of testable hypotheses
  • a robust dataset to validate and refine the hypotheses

2. Use data ethically.

3. Knows its data.

4. Knows its users.

5. Empowers members to learn, improve, and share their data skills.