The Data Culture

Playbook
A guide to building business resilience with data.
The Data Culture Playbook

Contents Introduction:
Measuring the business impact of Data Culture

How to use this playbook

Chapter 1:
Align leadership metrics to business priorities

Chapter 2:
Build data sources to address critical decision points

Chapter 3:
Grow value through targeted use cases

Chapter 4:
Promote widespread data discovery

Conclusion:
Future-proofing your organization for whatever comes next
The Data Culture Playbook

Introduction:

Quantifying the business

impact of Data Culture

Data is no longer just a competitive advantage, The COVID-19 pandemic showed that an agile, strategic use of data greatly impacts an
organization’s ability to react to market changes. But getting the most out of your data
it is critical to the health—and often the survival— requires more than just technology. It requires a commitment to promote data-driven
decision making at every level of the organization.
of an organization. This playbook is intended for
Despite the trillions of dollars invested in data and analytics in recent years, leaders are still failing to create a data-driven culture.

executives and data leaders who want to build According to a NewVantage Partners’ 2019 Big Data and AI Executive Survey comprised of 64 C-level executives:

resilience with data—to build a Data Culture

where every individual is equipped to tackle even
the most complex business challenges.

of survey participants reported that stated that they are not yet treating admit that they are not competing
they have yet to forge a data culture. data as a business asset. on data and analytics.
The Data Culture Playbook

This global crisis puts a spotlight on these failures and reminds us Data-leading companies see benefits like:
that organizations need to cultivate behaviors and mindsets that
support a Data Culture—a shared mission to put data at the heart
of every decision.
greater improvement in production time to improvements to customer retention and greater improvement in employee retention
market compared to data-aware entities. acquisition compared to data-adopting entities. compared to data-aware entities.
Even before this crisis, data-driven companies were reaping business benefits. Tableau commissioned global market intelligence
firm IDC to conduct a study* to identify the key visible and invisible elements that influence a Data Culture. Surveying employees
from large enterprises across the globe, they examined the drivers that separate data-leading organizations from those in earlier
Data Culture is even more critical now. McKinsey
stages of adoption.
highlighted three changes that continue to evolve Are you leading with data?
out of the COVID-19 crisis: Find out by asking team members
these questions:
• In the United States, 75 percent of people using digital channels for the
• Do people know how to interpret data?
first time indicate that they will continue to use them post-crisis.
• Can people get help from colleagues with
analytics or data-related questions?
• Business and analytics leaders are rallying around new analytics
• Do we give people access to the data they
solutions to support critical business areas in increasingly digital ways.
need?
• Are people accountable for the data they
• Demand recovery will be uneven and historical data forecasting models
access and create?
will be of little use to predict pockets of emerging demand. Rebuilt
• Do we require data to support decisions?
analytical models will be essential to steer operational decisions.

Source: IDC InfoBrief, sponsored by Tableau, Why You Should Care About Data Culture, April 2020.
Creating a Data Culture may seem daunting, even in the best of times. It takes a
commitment from every level of the organization to influence how people think about
Compared with data-aware companies—those at the least mature end of the Data Culture scale—18 percent more of data-
and act on data insights. But the reality is, you can take incremental steps to build these
adopting companies saw revenues increase and 20 percent more saw profits increase. Yet the most successful companies are the
data-leading organizations—those with the most successful Data Cultures. capabilities now, knowing that the steps you take have a monumental impact on your
resilience in the near-term and in the future.
The Data Culture Playbook

How to use this playbook

This playbook lays out a simple, but effective roadmap for building a Data Culture.
It contains four chapters, each with a specific focus area.

For each area, we outline how to make it happen—recommendations on how to build, run, and when you’re ready, expand and
mature these capabilities.

Building Running Expanding

Foundational steps that make it possible Programs and activities that create Actions to optimize and future-proof your
to derive value from data. measurable value across an organization. data efforts for years to come.

Keep in mind that Data Culture isn’t linear—it’s a living organism that continuously evolves. We urge you to take a
phased approach that makes sense for your organization’s goals and needs. The steps in this playbook can be executed
and repeated, both as a Data Culture comes to life and after it is thriving.
The Data Culture Playbook

Chapter 1:

Align leadership metrics

to business priorities

Goal: Making it happen:

Leaders from across the organization align on the Building: Running: Expanding:
most pressing business needs to determine where Create a data leadership committee Develop data to support guiding Redeploy and focus data resources Abercrombie &
the organization should be focusing its resources accountable for driving value with metrics at the leadership level, on the most urgent and high- Fitch creates
around data. data. Include stakeholders across composed of a few high-level data potential projects. Don’t be shy about
alignment with
the business and analytics functions. sources and visualizations to foster discontinuing long-standing efforts
a shared source of truth. if they aren’t serving pressing needs.
real-time data
What it looks like: Assess and prioritize the highest-
Abercrombie & Fitch uses near
value business problems that Analyze metrics against historical Assign executive sponsors to real-time data to guide a quarterly
Leadership buy-in ensures that individual leaders are all working toward should be the focus for data-driven performance to understand how monitor metrics at the senior levels alignment meeting between executives,
the same goals and assigning data resources to areas that have the biggest transformation. the business is fairing relative of the organization to ensure early business group leaders, and product
teams. These quick insights help
impact. In times of rapid change, agile organizations assess and re-evaluate to past business conditions warning of successes and failures
leaders map out goals, align on intent,
key priorities as conditions shift and learnings arise. Define a set of key guiding metrics and current forecasts. and continue to refine.
and determine where they want to
to understand the health of the focus their efforts.
To understand how the business is performing against priorities, a data business, using at most, 10 key Track metrics on a regular cadence Expand visibility into metrics
leadership committee creates a key set of metrics and works with the indicators. against expected performance to through regular, organization-wide
right people—typically an analyst team—to locate, create, and align data promptly identify unexpected trends communications so executives
sources to support these metrics. In this stage, data sources help provide and proactively address business regularly evangelize strategic use
a snapshot view at the leadership level. Ideally, these sources are updated challenges. of data.
on a regular or real-time basis so leaders can define expectations on how a
metric should perform. This affects how you prioritize more in-depth data
sources for later analyses.
The Data Culture Playbook

Chapter 2:

Build data sources to address

critical decision points

Goal: Making it happen:

Business metrics guide prioritization of data Building: Running: Expanding:
efforts and teams build data sources to address Identify a few key business Identify or build a few key data Measure the ROI of business Monitoring
the most critical business questions. processes that impact strategic sources that closely align to key improvements by analyzing the market recovery
metrics to identify areas of focus for decision points. As you deepen impact on strategic metrics.
at the world’s
new and adapted data sources. analysis, you may want to expand
your level of detail. Share your successes and learnings
busiest airport
What it looks like: Recruit a tiger team with data in meetings, one-on-ones, and
Dubai Airports uses data to drive
owners, business stakeholders, and Prioritize and execute performance reviews to ensure decisions around key experiences
Data owners and business owners form a tiger team, working together to identify or process experts to run a decision experiments to achieve incremental that contributors are rewarded and and systems—from check-in queue
create a few key data sources that have a direct impact on organization-wide metrics. point pilot for each of the top improvements, adjusting one factor, acknowledged for their efforts. times to flight arrivals and departures.
Ensure that these data sources align to one or multiple parts of a business process. This strategic approach allowed them
identified business problems. assessing the impact, and repeating.
For example, say one priority is customer growth. The data source might include to monitor market recovery, facilities
Document learnings and
information around customer behavior or the customer journey. reopening, and passenger confidence
Audit data use at the project level, Identify drivers of better opportunities for new data from related to COVID-19.
led by the tiger team, to identify performance by looking at changes the process changes and share with
Next, identify critical decision points—points where you choose to start, stop, continue,
or change aspects of your approach. Use your data sources to inform these points,
existing data sources, determine in factors and the impact on other teams who could benefit from

explore and model potential outcomes, and measure the impact. For example, did relevance, and identify gaps in business success. Remember to look or adapt the same data.
efforts to optimize the customer journey result in higher website engagement and knowledge. upstream for leading indicators of
product trials? One data source can help you optimize many decision points before improvement.
moving onto the next business process. This work sets you up for success before
building out data assets that will be used across the entire organization.
The Data Culture Playbook

Chapter 3:

Grow value with specific

use cases

Goal: Making it happen:

Create immediate value and engagement for Building: Running: Expanding:
priority use cases, sharing key data insights Identify subject matter experts in Create purpose-built data assets Incorporate data assets into Generating
through dashboards and data visualizations. each department that can provide like interactive visualizations, employees’ existing workflows organic
quick feedback and ensure that addressing key business processes and applications by setting up
excitement and
data and analytics teams have the and decision points. Focus on email subscriptions, chat alerts,
business context they need approachability, tailoring assets or embedding in workflow
trust at Red Hat
What it looks like: to develop data assets. to specific audiences. applications like your CRM.
Red Hat’s Enterprise Data and Analytics
team developed key performance
Create use cases aligned to priority areas to encourage interaction with Identify use cases where teams Bring data assets into important Search for and incorporate dashboards, working closely with
data. These use cases take the form of data assets—visualizations, could benefit from access to key meetings with stakeholders, new data into data sources and business leaders across all functional
areas. This created synergy and trust
reports, dashboards, and/or workbooks—that are useful, engaging, and data sources and engage the tiger executives, and board members dashboards that support predictive
that grew their data community and
offer insights to help solve immediate business needs. Teams across the team to address specific needs. to encourage data-based approaches and prescriptive analytics for
tripled their Tableau user base.
organization can evolve these assets to suit their own needs and identify to prevailing views and to showcase more advanced use cases.
other areas that could benefit from additional data assets or data sources. Outline requirements for data executive sponsorship.
As these assets evolve, ensure that teams refer back to the definitions assets to determine if you need Support development of data
outlined in leadership metrics, so everyone is speaking the same language. supplemental data to make them Launch programmatic efforts knowledge by adding definitions,
Share victories and patterns of success to help create a virtuous cycle that relevant to other audiences. and assign champions to offer explanations, notes, and metadata
expands and deepens engagement across the organization. Ensure customized metrics and support and coaching through to data assets, gathering feedback
dimensions can be mapped back formal meetings or informal from users along the way.
to a standardized definition. communications like chat groups
or company portals.
The Data Culture Playbook

Chapter 4:

Promote widespread
data discovery

Goal: Making it happen:

People at all levels have the confidence and the Building: Running: Expanding:
knowledge to follow the data discovery cycle on their Prioritize collaboration in Focus on enabling rather than Formulate a method and a JPMorgan Chase
own with as little intermediation as possible and department-level goals and creating content by expanding repository to capture learnings, prioritizes
initiatives, empowering individuals
then use data insights to drive business decisions. training initiatives. Open such as an internal portal or Wiki,
community and
at every level of the organization to opportunities for all skill levels and allocate employee time to this
own decisions in their purview and to build confidence and data literacy. function.
data literacy
What it looks like: take action based on data. Provide relevant examples so people
To deepen engagement across a
can get up to speed quickly. Document leading practices for 30,000-person community, JPMorgan
Once people are confident with data, they will want to ask richer questions Expand data exploration by data discovery to capture successful Chase used a gamified structure with
and create new data assets for themselves. In practice, this means making data sets and assets available Institute community-building methods and to provide inspiration skill belts that guide people through
different levels of data training
that data must be well-described, well-governed, and accessible. It also through a common BI platform, programs like lunch-and-learns, to others. Actively maintain these
depending on their experience.
requires widespread data literacy—the ability to explore, understand, and with governance that balances user groups, or competitions that practices and refine as your Data
communicate with data. At this stage, organizations benefit from data empowerment and control. Enable ad- set the stage for larger programs. Culture develops.
literacy training programs to teach fundamental data skills. Fostering hoc analysis through access to natural People can ask questions, get help,
community programs gives people a dedicated space to ask questions, language and visual analytics tools. and increase their data skills. Publicly identify and celebrate data
share best practices, and encourage engagement. At the beginning, champions and reward them through
these programs don’t have to be large efforts. They can take place where Start innovation and problem- Invest in robust data lineage, the promotion cycles, career growth,
conversations are already happening, and as engagement grows, you can solving initiatives like data key to sharing data and building and leadership opportunities. As
formalize efforts with dedicated owners, leaders, and processes. competitions to propose new trust. Use your BI platform to identify Data Culture develops, consider
hypotheses that challenge established and address data quality issues in formal data leadership roles.
notions about how the business works. sources with the highest usage.
The Data Culture Playbook

Conclusion:

Future-proofing The COVID-19 pandemic is widening the gap between the leaders and the
laggards: those who are actively embedding data and analytics into the fabric Additional resources

your organization of their company culture and those who are hesitant to invest in the programs
and the technology that help them get there. Data-leading organizations pivot
for data leaders

for whatever when necessary, innovate constantly, and refine consistently, giving them a
distinct competitive advantage when times are tough.

comes next
Five Elements of Data Culture
Dig into elements that separate the top
performers from the rest.
Creating a Data Culture isn’t a matter of flipping a light switch. Now is the time to make incremental changes,
starting with your workforce. Build out focus areas that lay the foundation for individuals and teams to Learn More
expand their use of data. Taking these steps helps you move in the right direction, future-proofing your Data
Culture for whatever lies ahead.

Forbes Virtual Event: The New

The Tableau Platform: Flexible technology Leadership Mindset
that supports a scalable Data Culture Executives share perspectives on
Tableau is the world’s leading analytics platform. putting data first in times of uncertainty.

Powerful, secure, and flexible, the Tableau platform

is designed for the individual and scaled for the Learn More

enterprise. As a trusted advisor to the world’s largest

organizations—including Honeywell, Charles Schwab,
Nissan, and many more—Tableau helps customers Tableau for Executives
successfully establish a Data Culture built on trust Learn how senior leaders build a Data

and a strategic commitment to data. Culture with Tableau.

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Looking to accelerate your Data Culture? We wrote the Blueprint.
Tableau Blueprint outlines Tableau best practices based on the expertise of thousands of customers to help
you turn repeatable processes into core capabilities. Look at the big picture—your analytics strategy—or
zoom in on a specific area to fine-tune and improve.