What is a data culture?
I’ve dubbed this newsletter “Data Culture for Human Teams,” which begs the question, what exactly is a data culture?
A data culture is an organizational environment where data is valued, accessible, and actively used to inform decisions and improve programs.
A data culture is an organizational environment where data is valued, accessible, and actively used to inform decisions and improve programs.
Now, this doesn’t mean we want everyone on the team to be a data analyst. The work of program design and implementation is difficult, and the people who run programs often have deep knowledge about their students and broader context. What we seek in cultivating a data culture is creating an environment of team learning and improvement.
Elements of a Strong Data Culture
We can create a team environment where every person feels like a data person. To cultivate this organizational culture, we must build in daily rhythms that embraces collaboration, engagement, and data-informed decision-making.
A data culture is based on humility and curiosity. We must be willing to admit that social change is hard and social structures are complex. We work hard to provide programs that center the experience of students and seek to be curious about how we can always be doing better. When we discover something isn’t working, we seek to learn and improve.
A data culture is based on humility and curiosity.
A data culture requires empowered and engaged team members. Our staff are the experts of their programs and (often) their students. We must respect the expertise of our team members, including their knowledge of local context and their own lived experiences. A data culture seeks to make sure team members feel equipped to make informed decisions and empowered to contribute to a learning environment.
A data culture requires empowered and engaged team members.
A data culture maintains that we can get better at making decisions based on evidence. It takes practice and processes to make continuous improvement a habit. We want our teams to bring in data each time they make a decision.
We can get better at this.
A data culture is not just about having data, it's about:
• How you use data: Your team is empowered to use data to make decisions and improve how your programs exist in your community.
• Who uses data: Data is accessible and useful to everyone, not just data analysts.
• The values encouraged in a strong data culture: Curiosity, transparency, evidence-based decision-making, and continuous learning.
Its not just about having data.
Consider your own team’s data culture:
• Is your team regularly engaging in conversations around data?
• When your team is curious about something, do they know how to ask a question in a way that leads to action?
• If your team asks an actionable question, how long does it take for someone to find the data needed to produce an answer?
• When challenges with your program occur, is your team able to shift towards data-informed curiosity?
Send me a message and tell me what the hardest part of cultivating a data culture has been for your team. I'm clearly a nerd for this stuff and would love to learn from you.
-Tait
