The CDO Midwest Summit hosted by CDO magazine and ComSpark brings together industry leaders as they share best practices with data and analytics. The following panelists share insights on accelerating innovation and using data and analytics as business drivers, in the session: “How To Innovate With Data And Analytics To Improve Business Outcomes Across The Maturity Spectrum.”

• Ben Blanquera, VP – Evangelist and Sr. Architect, Rackspace
• Jill Campbell, IT Program Management Leader, Belcan Engineering
• Jennifer Mezzio, Managing Director, HR Divisional Data Officer, Silicon Valley Bank
• Brian Shea, Chief Information Officer, MedOne Hospital Physicians

Paul Hardy, EVP of Professional Services at Ironside, moderates the session.

The panelists began by discussing their perspectives on the organizational data analytics journey. The speakers emphasize the necessity of a governance model, understanding business analytics, data validation, and other issues through the introduction.

According to Blanquera, encouraging a senior executive to understand the software development life cycle (SLDC) clarifies the value addition component of products.

Shea states that MedOne is a company that focuses on custom applications and starts the data journey by evaluating all the custom applications. He presented a clean and organized data feed to the executives to secure the buy-in.

Continuing further, Shea states, “The biggest thing at the leadership level was to get buy-in, making it real for them and understanding what our investment is, what we are spending on it.”

Moving forward, Campbell discusses drafting a charter as a roadmap that appeals to individuals. She dedicated time to rewrite the charter at Belcan Engineering with focus on the deliverables and philosophy.

Campbell states that it has nothing to do with technology but empowering people to be a part of the data culture. She reckons, “If we have a culture in the environment with the business and partner with them, that journey becomes easier, and that vision and charter becomes easier to write.”

The panelists reflect on how rapid execution has taken over business case documentation. "If you cannot put everything down in writing," Blanquera says, "at least have demos to show visibility around it that does not help you with your edge cases."

Shea agrees with Blanquera that clinical testing is critical before anything is implemented in production because it may impact patient care.

Adding further, Mezzio emphasizes transforming to an agile methodology as a challenge. Campbell responds to Mezzio by saying that it all boils down to the maturity of an organization. "If you are not mature enough to handle agile, she advises, maybe that is not right for you.”

Blanquera then urges individuals to realize that constant improvement is required after POC and production to ensure operability at scale and quickly. He recommends setting up guardrails and discussing the lifecycle of the system.

Switching his focus Shea mentions organizational maturity, culture, and engaging with the appropriate level at the right time. He believes that asking the right questions enables folks to comprehend the life cycle of things.

From a security standpoint, Shea feels fortunate to be in a cloud-native environment. He mentions leveraging SaaS models and managed services partners, which provide him with better resources and scalability.

“I look at the cloud as just a tool. It is another tool for me, just as if I had the server and the internal infrastructure,” Shea shares. He adds that the thought process of securing the data remains the same.

Finally, shedding light on governance, Mezzio states that it goes back to people, as humans are the massive cause of breaches. Therefore, developing a data-driven mindset within the organization enables everyone to understand their responsibility in safeguarding data as an asset.

 Watch other CDO Midwest Summit 2022 sessions HERE