As data alone is unlikely to drive decisions, chief data and analytics officers (CDAOs) need to learn to design better decisions and make change in three ways, according to Gartner. The three ways are: improving the timing of decisions, accelerating decisions and connecting decisions. This means they need to work better with machines to achieve results.
“Tighter regulations and unprecedented levels of uncertainty are increasing the complexity of decision-making,” said Erick Brethenoux, distinguished research vice president at Gartner. “CDAOs cannot just collect data and create analysis, and then hope it is used. They must start thinking about how their data and analysis can be used to influence the way decisions are made. Collecting all the data, doing all the analysis, but not thinking about how to ensure it is used by decision makers is a recipe for failure.”
Gartner analysts discussed how organisations can be more innovative in how they source and use data and analysis during Gartner Data & Analytics Summit, taking place in London through Wednesday.
Alys Woodward, senior research director at Gartner, said that while CDAOs may not be the decision makers, they should be the decision designers, designing analysis tailored for the particular decision maker. They can do this in three ways:
- Improving the Timing of Decisions
Consider using augmented analytics tools as their adoption will accelerate and quickly replace traditional reporting tools. CDAOs can use augmented analytics tools to not only proactively push analysis to decision makers and provide it at the time they need it, but also use the analysis to prompt a decision.
- Accelerating Decisions
As organisations grow and expand into new markets, decision making becomes more complicated. To accelerate decisions and drive better business outcomes, CDAOs can choose from decision augmentation or decision automation. In decision augmentation (hybrid decisions), both humans and systems work cooperatively to arrive at an outcome. At the decision automation level (machine-based decisions), the machines make decisions independently.
“Providing decision makers with recommendations that they can accept or reject, or alternatively presenting automating repetitive or time sensitive decisions can deliver significant benefits,” said Brethenoux.
- Connecting Decisions
Today, digital business allows companies to automate process mining and connect decisions into a network of influence and impact, that improves decisions across the whole business, not just separate parts of their organisation.
Learn about the top priorities for data and analytics (D&A) leaders in 2022 in the 2022 Leadership Vision for Data & Analytics Leaders.
