Focal Point: Instilling a Data-Savvy Mindset Across Organizations
In the realm of fast-paced, budding businesses with an annual growth rate of 20%, the task of cultivating a data-savvy culture can be akin to taming a wild beast. Picture a scenario where such a company decides to heavily overhaul its Data Architecture, causing a, well, freak-out. That's just what Brooke Gajownik, director of data services, faced at Beck's Hybrids.
At our Data Governance & Information Quality Conference, Gajownik shed light on her transformation journey at Beck's Hybrids. She explained how she turned the company's data chaos into a confident and thriving data culture. Her recommendations for success? Building relationships, fostering communication, education, and empowering users through self-service.
Homegrown Foundation
Gajownik's success story was rooted in understanding the core values and culture of Beck's Hybrids. From two people and an initial 80-acre farm in 1937, the company now stands as the third-largest retail seed company in the United States, operating 15 facilities across 19 states. Gajownik emphasized the importance of keeping its family culture as the backbone, with strong partnerships that extend the company's core beliefs, such as growing everything it needs, guaranteeing quality seeds, and aiding farmers in their success.
When Beck's Hybrids focuses on 'growing everything it needs,' that includes systems. "It dives right in, lets software bloom on its own, gives it a go, and sees what sticks," said Gajownik. This mindset set the stage for understanding the complexity and importance of Data Literacy.
Putting People First
Gajownik's success hinged on prioritizing the needs of individuals within the organization. In Beck's Hybrids, the leadership team, headed by CEO Sonny Beck, President Scott Beck, and three others, has relied on analytical email reports as their primary source of truth since the late 1980s. High-level Tableau dashboards were available, yet executives favored the email format as they were more familiar and trustworthy.
Gajownik and her team supported this preference by hiring data advocates, subject matter experts (SMEs) with a deep understanding of the business and technology, to ensure accurate and quality data was delivered for decision-making. Gajownik's focus on 'people' rather than 'project' or 'data' allowed her to identify and mobilize the Data Literacy needs of the organization effectively.
Sowing Data Knowledge
When connecting with others, Gajownik advised, "People want to link up and feel they're not forced to do something. Instead of asking them to collude, propose a collaboration. Chat with anyone and everyone in the corridor, connect on a human level where you genuinely care about them."
To Gajownik and her team, the relationship-building work and the caring — through fixing and releasing reports, and educating the business about data — represented seeds of data knowledge.
Growing Data Knowledge through Communication and Education
Communication and education are vital for transparency in a large company, particularly when addressing internal customer data reporting issues. Understanding the data lineage, tracing its origin back to the table where it is stored, is crucial.
Gajownik leads a comprehensive Data Governance Initiative, educating and engaging employees cross-functionally to enhance Data Literacy. Tailored online classes address the specific needs of departments such as logistics. Beck's Hybrids uses educational software to effectively communicate and deliver Data Literacy classes to employees. With new courses focused on Data Governance and reporting, they now play a key role in onboarding.
Watching Data Literacy Bloom
Beck's Hybrids maintains its Data Literacy message with its partners and dealers. Gajownik works with Data Galaxy to help farmers get insights into their data. Through this platform, "partners dealers strengthen each other in their data knowledge," said Gajownik. The platform integrates seamlessly with Beck's Hybrids data planning and activity, including educational content, and boasts an outstanding user experience.
Empowering Self-Service through a Common Language
Acknowledging the challenges of enabling self-service in a rapidly growing company, Gajownik engages a team of technical business partners. They act as liaisons between the tech team and the business, helping the business understand and utilize shared data terminology that includes a business glossary and a data dictionary.
Having a data warehouse as a single source of truth, especially after the logic changes in 2022, plays a significant role in ensuring Data Literacy. The warehouse helps maintain consistency in expectations from report requests while the business glossary extends out from the warehouse logic as a version of the source of truth.
Gajownik expressed a desire to make it simple for employees, partners, and dealers to collaborate with Beck's Hybrids about data. She aimed to create an easy-to-use product "that we can put in front of people so they can collaborate with us about the data." Being agile and co-building products with data that drive growth was her investment strategy of choice.
In conclusion, Beck's Hybrids took a human-centric approach to build a data-literate culture. "We want our customers to own their data, not just what they think they know about it, but actually put in those definitions, ask for reports, and be truly self-serviceable. We want them to speak that common language, along with the visibility of the data," said Gajownik, "We want them to thrive and excel at their jobs."
To learn more about our upcoming events, check out our conference lineup here.
Check out Brooke Gajownik's DGIQ presentation
Sources: Gajownik, Brooke. "Building a Data-Literate Culture: A Data Governance Story." Data Governance & Information Quality Conference, 2022.
- In the midst of rapidly growing businesses, cultivating a data-savvy culture could be as challenging as taming a wild beast, Alice Gajownik, director of data services at Beck's Hybrids, revealed at a Data Governance & Information Quality Conference.
- Understanding the core values and culture of Beck's Hybrids was crucial for Gajownik's success story, with the company tracing its roots back to 1937, starting as a small 80-acre farm and evolving into the third-largest retail seed company in the US, operating 15 facilities across 19 states.
- To make significant headway in the realm of data-and-cloud-computing, Gajownik advocated prioritizing people over projects or data, focusing on building relationships, fostering communication, education, and empowering users through self-service to drive success.
- Achieving comprehensive Data Literacy involved understanding the data lineage and embracing proper data management, education-and-self-development, and personal-growth strategies that addressed departmental needs and leveraged technology.
- To foster Data Literacy across the organization, Gajownik led a Data Governance Initiative, offering tailored online classes and education software while also partnering with Data Galaxy to help farmers understand and utilize data effectively, driving their personal success and strengthening overall business growth.
