Pay attention: why data isn’t boring
Overcoming the yawn factor
When I deliver a presentation on data, or speak about the topic in a meeting, I can often see people’s eyes slowly glaze over; their focus dwindles and their heads nod at random. Let’s face it – a good graph illustrating an unexpected trend generally gets everyone’s attention, but the work that takes place in order to create that graph is mind-numbingly boring to most people – akin to watching the grass grow.
If, however, you’re like me then the propagation rate of British lawns is rather thrilling, and the power of data quite staggering.
Improving lives with data
That behind-the-scenes work is significant and it’s something EF and I take very seriously. A few weeks ago a video was posted on our LinkedIn page where I spoke about EF’s values and how they inform our approach to information. These values have driven a desire to create an environment where we do all we can to improve the lives of our service users, whilst maintaining a happy workplace and being a supportive employer.
You may ask what that has to do with data: it has everything to do with it.
Data allows us to plan for the future, to address the present and improve on the past. With the right metrics it allows us to mitigate effectively and react swiftly. Data tells us how our work benefits service users and what we can do better to increase that benefit; it tells us about the happiness of our staff, our financial security and progress on our strategic plan.
Better decision-making
Improving our data management as we grew was always a top priority. Now, as we’ve evolved as an organisation so have our data systems and abilities. We’ve matured from a small, peer-to-peer organisation to one able to use live information to make better decisions and respond with agility to new situations.
Of course, enhanced data management it is not the only factor in our growth, but it has played a huge role in our success. Critical to the development of our data capabilities has been choosing the right data partners – organisations that share our values and collaborate with us to improve our work.
Data quality and security
Our quality-driven data strategy ensures: staff are effectively trained to record data accurately; that we adhere to data protection legislation; our software and hardware systems (our ‘IT estate’) are secure, reliable and well-maintained; and our data is sound.
Every organisation, whether they admit it or not, experiences data breaches. The bigger the staff team and the IT estate the higher the frequency of breaches. Our information systems have never suffered an attack, and in the last 18 months we have only had three accidental data breaches. With almost 200 staff, distributed across England in over 20 offices, that is something we’re proud of.
Maybe not so boring?
So, maybe the next time someone puts up a PowerPoint graph in a meeting, please suppress your yawns and give a little thought to the staggering power of data and how it helps you get things done and make lives better.
