Chief data officer

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10 April 2015

The acronyms CIO and CDO are undergoing various interpretations at the moment, with the former’s ‘I’ and the latter’s ‘D’ coming under scrutiny.

Should the ‘I’ be for Information and the ‘D’ be for Data? Or should the ‘I’ be for Innovation the ‘D’ be for Digital?

Well, one reaction to all of this is that not only does it not matter it is not relevant, but perhaps more commonly, the former interpretations are applied and for good reason.

While the CIO is still seen very much as a technologist there to help the business interpret how technological developments can deliver advantage, the CDO is much more business focused and is tasked with data governance, management and compliance, but also more critically, data usage.

Leveraging data
It seems the CDO, to many, is there to guide the various parts of the business in how data can be best leveraged to achieve business outcomes. This was the unanimous verdict of a panels experts at a Gartner Master Data Management Summit in London recently.

“Looking back to the commonly agreed functions of the CDO, outside of the technology, it looks as if all of this is taken care of, bar the pure usage element. That would lead one to ask if there is enough meat in the CDO role to justify it”

While all agreed that the CDO should be outcome focused, they also agreed that there were benefits to the role reporting to either the chief operating officer (COO), or the chief executive officer (CEO), as this would allow the person to remain more business focused and not become mired in the technology, which was deemed a risk if within the bailiwick of the CIO.

The importance of the role is perhaps best expressed by the recent UK government appointment of the former head of Government Digital Services Mike Bracken as that country’s first CDO.

Bracken will be responsible for developing a new government data standard, championing open data, and encouraging the use of data in the decision-making process. He will also lead in developing greater data analysis skills and capability across government.

This begs the question, does Ireland need a chief data officer?

Central plank
Data and its usage is a central plank of the Public Service ICT Strategy 2015 document released earlier this year, and that I commented upon in last month’s column.

The strategy identifies data as an enabler and aims to facilitate “better sharing of data on a whole-of-government basis to support better decision making, drive efficiency and deliver a range of new digital Government services to citizens and businesses, subject to relevant legislation.” It will also “Recognise that the governance and management of data is critical to ensuring data quality, as is the implementation of the necessary infrastructure to allow sharing of data between Public Bodies while recognising citizens data privacy rights.”

This would seem to suggest that indeed, we do need a CDO, if the role of data is to be so critical.

But looking further, the strategy says that it “provides an enhanced approach in which data can be shared; duplication reduced; innovation and collaboration encouraged and facilitated; and recognising data transfer, data management and data as a critical enabler to support new services and better decision making.”

“Furthermore, this will support Open Data initiatives leading to increased openness and transparency between Government and the public.”