10 Steps to Creating a Data-Driven Culture

For many companies, a strong, data-driven culture remains elusive, and data are rarely the universal basis for decision making. Why is it so hard? Our work in a range of industries indicates that the biggest obstacles to creating data-based businesses aren’t technical; they’re cultural. We’ve distilled 10 data commandments to help create and sustain a culture with data at its core: Data-driven culture starts at the (very) top; choose metrics with care – and cunning; don’t pigeonhole your data scientists within silos; fix basic data access issues quickly; quantify uncertainty; make proofs of concept simple and robust; offer specialized training where needed; use analytics to help employees  as well as customers; be willing to trade flexibility in programming languages for consistency in the short-term; and get in the habit of explaining analytical choices.