Discovering Your Organization's Data Maturity Level with a FREE Data Maturity Assessment

Everyone, regardless of level of seniority, is involved with data in some capacity in any business or public organization. Senior employees are often in charge of duties that involve modeling, managing, and engineering data. The majority of the time, responsibilities linked to obtaining, creating, entering, storing, and consuming data fall under the purview of those with less seniority. Even though the details of each function may vary, everyone in the organization essentially has a part to play in the data-related tasks. Whoever controls the information, as the adage goes, holds the power. However, firms need to be able to use data effectively in order to achieve a competitive advantage. Although having data expertise within the firm is essential, hiring data experts is also critical. Data should be available to everyone, not just a select few, as it is a vital resource. The organization as a whole has more options for innovation and a better knowledge of how data may support business decisions. It also makes decision-making quicker and more efficient and less dependent on outside expertise.

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A data maturity assessment is a process of evaluating an organization's current level of data management capabilities and identifying areas for improvement. The purpose of a data maturity assessment is to help organizations understand their current state of data management and identify opportunities for improvement. The assessment can be used to identify gaps in data governance, data management, data analytics, and data visualization, and to develop a plan for addressing these gaps.

A data maturity assessment typically tests three components: people, processes, and tools, as shown in the diagram below. People refers to the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and roles of the people involved in data management, analysis, collection, and use, as well as the dominant culture of data literacy and data-driven decision-making in the organization. Processes refers to existing data management processes and use cases, including data governance, data security, data privacy, data management, data analytics, and data visualization and assesses how the organization collects, stores, manages, and uses data, and how data is integrated into the organization’s decision-making processes. Tools  evaluates the organization’s data management tools and technologies, including data storage solutions, data integration tools, data visualization tools, and data analytics tools, with a particular focus on the fit between intended use cases and technology choices.

Performing a comprehensive data maturity assessment that covers all three components (people, processes, and tools) is typically an expensive and a time-consuming process that is usually carried out by big consulting firms like Accenture or McKinsey. Hence we created our own version of a Data Maturity Assessment (or DMA as we use this acronym thoughout this article) that is less time consuming, quick access, and focused on understanding an individuals' ability to effectively utilize data on different scenarios. Our version of the DMA is a deep dive into the team skills and data culture of the organization, with a reduced focus on process and tools.

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We provide a 60-90 minute adaptive exam that covers a range of competency skill tests and behavioral questions to evaluate the full level of data maturity of your team. The architecture for the exam is shown below:

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Upon completion of the exam, Eskwelabs provides a detailed report and dashboard of your team’s performance and relevant insights for your management. This includes a breakdown of skill competency results by team, by individual, by role type, or by tenure at the firm, as well as analysis of general behavioral and cultural tendencies within the team.

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A sample of some of the possible individual competency results is shared below:

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The assessment also measures the overall data maturity organization by asking questions about things like data-driven decision making, the culture of data in the organization, the quality and integrity of data sets, and the use of data analytics. A sample of some of the results that may be shared is included below:

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The data collected from the assessment is displayed on an interactive dashboard, which allows you to view the results by team, person, or job seniority. This feature can be used by HR to identify specific skills gaps and help develop personalized training plans for individuals within the team. A view from the dashboard is shown below:

The assessment results can also be used to identify not just the skills gap but also what skills participants identify as most useful and most desired for themselves. This can be used by managers and HR to help support the professional development of team members in the direction they most desire. This is provided at both an aggregate and individual level. An example of a view from this dashboard is provided below:

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The data maturity assessment is a tool that evaluates how well an organization is using data and provides a report and dashboard with results. The dashboard includes features that are of primary interest and the assessment is free. After taking the assessment, the organization can review the results with the assessment provider and bring in managers to hear about the results. The provider can also share typical next steps for improving data maturity for organizations in similar situations and compare the results to those of other organizations that have taken the assessment before.

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To learn more about our Learning Sprints and how they can benefit your institution, we encourage you to download our Sprint Catalogue. 

Together, we can bridge the skills gap and prepare future generations for the changing nature of work.