Data is not just another resource. It is your most powerful, yet poorly managed and therefore underutilized organizational asset. Data are your sole nondepletable, non-degradable, durable strategic assets, and they are pervasively shared across every organizational area. Lack of talent, barriers in organizational thinking, and seven specific data sins exist as organizational prerequisites to be satisfied before (a measurable) 9 out of 10 organizations can begin to achieve the three primary goals of an organizational data strategy – these are to:

• Improve your organization’s data.
• Improve the way your people use data.
• Improve the way your people use data to achieve your organizational strategy.

In this manner, your organizational data strategy can be used to best focus your data assets in precise support of your organization's strategic objectives. Once past the prerequisites, organizations must develop a disciplined, repeatable means of improving the data literacy, standards, and supply as business objectives in specific areas that become the foci of subsequent data governance efforts. This process (based on the theory of constraints) is where the strategic data work really occurs as organizations identify prioritized areas where better assets, literacy, and support (data strategy components) can help an organization better achieve specific strategic objectives. Then the process becomes lather, rinse, and repeat. Several complimentary concepts are covered including:

• A cohesive argument for why data strategy is necessary for effective data governance
• An overview of prerequisites for effective data strategy, as well as common pitfalls that can detract from its implementation, such as the “Seven Deadly Data Sins”
• A repeatable process for identifying and removing data constraints
• The importance of balancing business operation and innovation while doing so