Hub & Spoken: Data | Analytics | Chief Data Officer | CDO | Data Strategy

In this episode, Jason talks to Pye Nyunt, Head of Innovation at London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. It is a local authority that services about 213,000 people in the East London region. For local governments that work closely with so many different people on a daily basis, data is often part of the solution. They discuss how data is used in council areas to improve the outcomes governed by current legislation and policies.

In this episode host, Jason Foster, argues that the metaphor ‘data is the new oil’ shouldn’t be used as it comes with such negative connotations and is ineffective at explaining the value of data in organisations. He uses a balanced argument to explain the reasons the metaphor does work and the longer list of reasons it doesn’t work as an analogy. He also puts right how The Economist is misrepresented in an article it wrote in 2017 where it's said that this phrase was created and spawned.

In this episode, host Jason Foster, talks to Rob Barham, Director of Data at Gousto, about how they embed data into everything they do. They discuss what a data native business looks like, how data plays a part in Gousto’s growth ambitions and culturally how this manifests itself across the organisation. They explore how they are set up and work cross-functionally to ensure effort is focussed on business outcomes and that data acts as a value-creating capability.

In this episode, host Jason Foster, considers whether art or science plays the most important part in creating a data-guided organisation. He talks about the influence art has on the success and failure of data science strategies and the right blend to achieve positive outcomes. What's more important art or science in your data strategy?

In this episode Jason talks to Viktor Kazinec, Head of Analytics at Close Brothers, to discuss the value of working closely with external stakeholders on data science solutions. They discuss how to choose data projects that can prove and add value, the success drivers of a team, managing and gaining buy-in from internal and external stakeholders, and creating high-performing data science teams.

The data industry has regular rhetoric that you shouldn’t look backward or run reports that look at what happened (descriptive analytics). This has led people to believe that this panacea exists where you are able to have your business strategy prescribed to you by data (prescriptive analytics). In this episode, host Jason Foster, argues why looking backward is a vital ingredient for your data strategy and how this practice helps you to improve personal and business performance.

In this episode Jason talks to Rob Kellaway, the Head of DataOps at Legal and General Investment Management about the role of DataOps for data strategy. They discuss how the role of DataOps should be to operationalise and increase the value and efficiency of data as it moves through the pipeline. They also explore how the governance surrounding your data strategy should be lightweight and productive, rather than governance for governance sake. Trimming down your plan of execution and finding ways of making the process more efficient is where the important role of DataOps steps in. Listen to find out more.

Our host, Jason Foster along with Barry Green were looking to give leaders the tools they needed to start changing the narrative on data and have it focused on what really matters – economic, business, organisational and societal outcomes. They got together, authored and published ‘Data Means Business’, a highly rated and best selling book. In this episode, they discuss the book, the process they went through to go from the gem of an idea to a published best selling book, why they felt there was a gap for this kind of book and some of the key topics, concepts and frameworks.

In this episode, Jason sits down with the founder of Data Kitchen, Christopher Bergh (otherwise known as the ‘Head Chef’) to discuss the importance of DataOps, and how this can be translated to improving the performance of technical data teams. They discuss how imperfect action can be better than delaying your delivery…only to find out it has flaws. Shorter delivery time and the importance of continuous feedback are also covered.