Ep. 41 Leveraging Data to Make Decisions

It is all about alignment.

When you hit a pothole, you need to get your car aligned; if you do not your tires will wear out and can cause an expensive repair to the bushings and ball joints of your car.

Anybody who has worked on a federal technology project knows the world of digital potholes. Only in this case, the project halts because your agency’s data is not aligned with the agency’s goals.

During this interview, Tom Scurlock from Talend explains how to make sure your data is clean and dependable. If you decide to jump into machine learning, you will discover the importance of data scientists give to having reliable data.

The Talend website takes a quote from ancient Rome and applies it to today’s digital transformation. The phrase is “Fortune Favors the Prepared.”  You can take this to mean that if you are seriously looking at machine learning and artificial intelligence, it would benefit you to have a complete assessment of the quality of your data.

The federal government is taking this ancient maxim to mind as well. The Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018 established the Chief Data Officer’s Council. Currently, there are ninety members. This is a strong vote for the federal government to realize the importance of data.

One of the results of being careful with data is it will allow agencies, and researchers analysts to produce reliable repeatable decisions and results. That sidesteps the inevitable arguments about the starting point of the analysis and gives most of the time to federal leasers for actual analysis and getting value for the data.