We all know federal agencies generate petabytes of data and have the capacity to store that data indefinitely on devices, in data centers, and in the cloud. But what’s the point of all that data if it can’t be put to work. The real value of data comes from an agency’s ability to extract insight from that data and put it to work to solve mission-critical problems using highly effective strategies like DevOps and APIs.
There are many obstacles to overcome when an agency looks to become a data-driven organization. Some of the problems like getting data out of silos are frustrating, while other problems like managing data storage can be expensive. Moreover, building the right infrastructure to integrate with any system or application –including legacy applications and custom – that enables your team to access, capture, and integrate data isn’t simple. Finally you need to be able to convert data into insight, which sometimes involves ensuring collaboration between the IT department and a functional unit.
In other words, while information offers a lot of benefits these challenges, frustrations, and expenses often throws up obstacles to getting to a data-driven mission.
So, with pressure on federal agencies to become data-driven organizations, how do IT and functional leaders start to aggregate and analyze more information to support better decision-making collaboratively? What if your agency doesn’t have a CDO to bridge the gap between IT and functional teams? How can you enable more effective business process automation, better understand citizens, and provide more effective mission support?
Before fearing that data will, in fact, cause paralysis in your agency, rather than driving innovation, help is at hand from federal IT leaders who have already started on the journey to being data-driven organizations. In a recent GovMatters program, data professionals from the U.S. Army, Department of Defense, and the Department of Health and Human Services discuss the steps they have taken and will be taking to put data to work.
One best practice they shared is to build in “quick wins” to teams focused and drive towards an effective long-term data management strategies.
Want to learn more from these data gurus about how to not just manage but master your agency’s data? Watch the GovMatters show below:
