What stops businesses democratising data?

These days, democracy is very much on everyone’s minds as it is being threatened in countries worldwide. What are the core elements of democracy? Openness? Transparency? Working towards a common goal, following clear and agreed rules? The same values need to be held within corporates in order to motivate their employees, and empower them to deliver great results.

The word democracy is also often used as a slogan for the need to “democratise data” within organisations. There is a growing movement around the need to put data itself, data science tools, and data insights into every employees hands — that it should not be the preserve of a small elite of data scientists. The argument is clear; the more team members aware and knowledgeable about data and its applications, the more ideas generated for how to use data, the more brains applied to the problem, and the greater adoption of data solutions. Simply put, people can do their jobs better.

How do you go about getting the data in front of your team, and getting them stuck in? There are a few considerations, including:

• Technical — how does your team get access, how do they work with the data
• Skills — how do they know what to do and how to use the data
• Governance — how to protect the organisation from any privacy or security…