What is Data Culture, and How Do You Build It?

What is Data Culture? 

Tableau defines data culture as "the collective behaviors and beliefs of people who value, practice, and encourage use of data and AI to propel organizational transformation. It equips everyone across an organization with intuitive, productive insights to tackle complex business challenges."

Demystifying Data Culture

Establishing a strong data culture is more than a buzzword—it's a cornerstone of deploying and adopting data analytics into day-to-day business activities. Success starts with intention, and developing your data culture from within should be a priority from day one. 

Melissa Pomeroy of the CCUA and Shira Spector from Valley Strong Credit Union recently unpacked the often misunderstood concept of "data culture" and challenged common assumptions in a webinar. They explore how credit unions can harness data culture to enhance decision-making, elevate member experiences, and optimize operations.

How to Foster a Data-Driven Mindset Across Your Organization

Take it from the experts; here are some tips from Shira and Melissa on fostering a data-driven mindset:

1. Stay curious
2. Continually challenge what you already know
3. Recognize that you don't know everything and be open to learning
4. Don't start with the end in mind
   

I am a lifelong learner...I am always asking a question to challenge what I already know. With the credit union mission of improving people's financial wellbeing comes continually looking to improve ourselves." 

- Shira Spector, Valley Strong Credit Union

Empower your team to unlock new opportunities and maximize the potential of your data analytics technology stack. Don't jump straight into a solution without asking the questions that come first. Start by asking yourself:

1. What are my goals and how can I achieve them?
2. What is my strategy?
3. How do I get people to ask questions?
4. How do I get them access to the data? 
5. How do I get them the skills?
6. How do we make data less scary?

What problem are you trying to solve? Figure out what that problem is and then go after it and make sure you’re leveraging the data in the right way in order to get to the answer to that problem, working collaboratively with your partners and your organization."

- Melissa Pomeroy, CCUA

Another Way to Think About 'Data Culture'

Culture is a mindset or way of thinking…Acumen is more of a competency that when you build it, it will shift people’s way of thinking.  We don’t create culture; we develop acumen to shift culture. Culture is the end game, we dont create it but we develop acumen to shift the culture the way we want to. 

Data Acumen: The ability to make good judgments about the use of data to support a problem's solution. 

Building data acumen at your credit union includes: 

1. Learning to read, write, and communicate data
2. Using data tools responsibly
3. Understanding how data impacts business, and
4. Identifying opportunities

How Valley Strong is Successfully Building a Data-Driven Culture

Valley Strong Credit Union has used their organization's 4 core competencies as foundational pillars for their data culture. They've recruited a group of data enthusiasts to be role models and promote best practices throughout the organization. Valley Strong has even held true to their core competency of "embracing the fun" by doing data scavenger hunts with prizes to continue building data acumen.

Their credit union named their data ecosystem "The Greenhouse" as a nod to the grape farming industry of their home base, Bakersfield California, and as a symbol of growing insights, growing as a credit union, and data as a living and breathing thing. 

To learn more about how Valley Strong is using "The Greenhouse" to build data culture and better leverage the tools of Arkalytics, check out the full on-demand webinar!