Inigo Antolin, Head of Data Management at British Council, has been named Data Champion for his work quelling the fears of data across his team and the wider organisation. The British Council faces multiple data issues as it is a public sector organisation where financial resources are scarce, and its 9,000 employees are present in 100 countries with disparate levels of data literacy.
Antolin’s work as a data champion has assisted the four data managers at British Council to ensure colleagues are confident in their abilities and have access and training to the best tools necessary. Antolin described his work using the metaphor of a knight in armour (data) slaying the dragon (fear of data) which struck a chord with the judges.
Consistent progress
Thanks to using a wide range of techniques, Antolin has been successful over the last 12 months in improving the status of data in the organisation: from bringing external guests, to running a data storytelling newsletter, and creating a casual data governance course.
“Almost nobody cares about the last update of Azure ML studio,” said Antolin. “What colleagues care about is how to do their jobs well. In an age of huge technological change, data sounds increasingly scary.”
As an international legacy business, data literacy at the British Council can face other challenges including very disconnected silos across numerous geographies with little common data culture. Antolin noted that the perceived dryness and tediousness of data management and governance were a hindrance to the development of the team’s data culture, so Antolin embarked on a quest to dispel the myth that data is only for experts and instil a new era of data culture within the business.
Antolin and his colleagues created produced visual data maps which show at a high level which teams, systems, and data points take place across the organisation. This first action was followed suit by helping colleagues to improve the way they talk about data.
The Data Science team was already producing valuable projects; however, they were not making the most to communicate the results. To remedy this, Antolin started a weekly data storytelling newsletter sharing tips about how to better communicate projects. The newsletter has covered a wide range of topics such as how to choose the best graph for a visualisation or free tools for online data storytelling. This has led to better communication of outputs.
Another principle was to avoid the use of jargon and explaining concepts in a simple manner. With the help of colleagues and deep diving into data literacy, Antolin prepared a data governance course which is now one of the pillars of the rollout of a new data governance framework. The Data Governance course has been written in plain English and complex concepts are tackled with easy-to-understand analogies and images. Additionally, specific courses for data owners and data stewards are in development.
Following the same principle of creating interest by making things easy, Antolin has created visual microsites. Instead of just publishing the 40-page data governance framework document and expecting colleagues to read it, he developed a microsite.
An enterprise data catalogue has been developed to provide colleagues with additional resources and support when it comes to data usage, regardless of their ability. This has helped maintain a clean and tidy data landscape for further data development to launch from.
By inviting industry experts to demonstrate their work, Antolin has found another way to keep people engaged and highlight the diverse use of data in different businesses. Sessions have covered the importance of data in niches such as sport, but also why data management and governance are critical in any organisation.
Gathering more allies has been central to Antolin’s approach. He leads a community of practice with more than 300 members with monthly meetings attended by colleagues from all areas of the business. The sessions celebrate the best data work in the organisation and supports colleagues finding partners for their own data projects.
Elsewhere, Antolin helped to establish a Community Data Analyst Scheme for colleagues with an interest in data. This received 260 applications with 16 colleagues being selected to receive PowerBI training and assigned a mentor, resulting in more data literate colleagues.
The impact of all these actions on the organisation’s data literacy has been huge and Antolin’s efforts have seen the fear of data is shrinking in size as the organisation becomes more data mature and aligned.
British Council are part of the DataIQ membership programme – the trusted global collaboration and intelligence platform for data leaders. Find out more here: https://www.dataiq.global/membership
