(US and Canada) Theodore Kaouk, the Deputy Director of Human Capital Data Management and Modernization and the Chief Data Officer at the US Office of Personnel Management, speaks with Denise Verdicchio, SVP, President Public Sector Sales at SHI International Corp. about his role as a chief data officer in the federal government, its mission as an agency, the CDO council, and having a human-centered approach within the organization.

Kaouk says that the CDO’s role is to leverage federal data as a strategic asset for building evidence, evaluating programs, improving decision making, and making data accessible to the public. Speaking about his current position, he states that the mission of the agency is to help the federal government by managing the immense amount of data of 2.1 million federal employees across 430 federal departments, with 8.2 million enrollees in the health benefits program and 2.7 million retirees.

With the vast data in the repository, he says, the agency can become a center for human capital data analysis, delivering advanced analytics data standards across the federal government — along with digital and data solutions — and together they can be the key enablers for strategic human capital data management.

Kaouk then sheds light on the Chief Data Officers Council and its focus on implementing the significant federal requirements to deliver the best services to the public through data and analytics solutions. He further highlights the council’s creation of a work group on COVID-19 data, as the onset of the pandemic increased demands for data and decision support tools. Collaboration with the CDC and the department of health helped to overcome the challenges faced in accessing data during the pandemic, he adds.

Kaouk then puts forth the human-centric approach that requires employees and executives to work as a single team. He believes in having an interdisciplinary team of skilled data analysts and data scientists in collaboration with people who listen. A space for people to ask real questions, rather than the data-based ones, with the help of convergent-divergent thinking, is pivotal, he asserts.

In conclusion, Kaouk says that the creation of a common dashboard template for the various federal agencies led to easy data access for leaders by providing them with required data at-a-glance.