What are your key areas of focus for data and analytics in 2022?
Our goal at MyNavy HR is to ensure that our data provides critical insight for improving executive decisions, making sailors happier (thus improving retention), and optimizing processes that add value to the organization. The primary line of effort is the migration and rationalization of data from dozens of federated systems to a centrally-managed system of systems. This effort includes establishing a data pipeline, codifying data governance and improving corporate data literacy. The end state will be high-quality data housed in a modern system and readily available for operations and analytics.
Given the sheer size of the Navy, its organizational silos and disparate systems and the sheer quantity of supported personnel, this is a monumental initiative. For perspective, there are maybe 25 companies worldwide with more than 400,000 employees, but they do not track employee physical fitness, medical wellness, family accountability, family member needs or any number of other elements that we must follow for our military members.
Tell us what leadership means to you in the context of your role as a senior data leader.
As a leader, my role is to communicate an understandable vision to support a monumental task, while managing expectations, setting a pathway forward for our data, leading the cultural change required, recruiting and training the needed talent, establishing the plan, correcting any issues with the data lineage or supply chain and inspiring the team to execute on a deliverable that meets the customers need. That is a lot, and requires prioritization and tough calls. It means managing disappointment of expediting execution; there will be times where we have to accomplish foundational tasks before we can actually start anything complex.
And what about the skills of your data teams and of your business stakeholders? How are you developing data literacy across the company/organization?
The majority of stakeholders and data teams in our organization are data literate and understand the value of data; most have been working with MyNavy HR data for years and are therefore entrenched in the status quo. As we modernize with improved data management tools, Agile processes, robotic process automation, machine learning and artificial intelligence, we must focus on change management to ensure that the culture keeps pace.
Rather than boiling the ocean, we are taking a measured approach to address only a few issues at a time, introducing value to the business owners as we implement change. During the first quarter of 2022, my office looked at supporting critically staffed call centers with a chatbot framework that could point sailors in the right direction and help them solve their own issues.
I need to continue to think outside the box. Setting up a data literacy training across the organization may not be enough. These days, data literacy must be coupled with technical literacy to be truly effective. We are pushing the envelope on all fronts to meet the Navy’s current and future needs with a tech-savvy and data-capable workforce.
