Data is a Road Trip...
...not a Destination
A major mindset shift organisations need to make is realising that Data is not a Destination—Data is a Road Trip. This sounds like fortune-cookie wisdom Bhav and it doesn't mean anything.
Let me explain? When you think of Data as a Destination your brain thinks "We need to arrive somewhere at a certain point in time. It's going to take X amount of time to get there, so the latest we need to leave by is Y. And once we're there, that’s it".
In principle this sounds reasonable BUT, there's a problem with this way of thinking. Why? Well, to start with, only a handful of people know where we’re going and they haven’t really told anyone. Or they might not even know know themselves, they’ve just been told that we all have to go! They don't really know how long it's going to take to get there, maybe they’ve never even been before. And the time they need to arrive is fuzzy at best. This means... everyone waits until the last minute to leave. Most people don’t know why they’re going in the first place. No one plans for any disruptions to the journey and they’re view is that the length of the trip is some finite amount of time. And finally, everyone thinks that once we’re there, the journey is over.
Now think of Data as a Road Trip. The brain is no longer fixed on “what’s the final destination?” or “when do we need to get there?”. It even accepts that it’s a longer journey. It’s focussed on the planning of the trip. The places we are going to stop and see, the budget we have and how best to spend it along the way. With each checkpoint you reach, you can make a decision to carry on or adjust the route. You might decide to stay longer somewhere because you love the views. The best part is that you only need to ask people to meet you at each destination they’re needed instead of dragging everyone with you for months on end.
This shift in mindset means people are more prepared and maybe even more excited about leaving and reaching the first checkpoint. The people who need to meet you along the way will have better understanding of where to meet you, why and roughly when.
Hopefully by viewing Data in this manner, you’ll appreciate that it’s better viewed as a journey - specifically a road trip! In my next post, I’ll discuss what each one of those checkpoints might look like.
