Honeycomb Group: a journey to data maturity

Data maturity case study

Honeycomb Group is a team of social-minded brands championing happy homes across Staffordshire and its surrounding areas. The Group includes Staffs Housing, an affordable housing provider, Revival, a trusted home repairs, improvements and support service, Glow, a charity on a mission to end relationship abuse, and Concrete, a charity leading the fight to erase homelessness.

When Garry Abbott moved into the role of Data Analyst for the group in 2017, he inherited around 1200 regular reports and a somewhat reactive approach to the organisation’s data needs.

“The norm that had built up over time was that if someone wanted a new report, they got it. There wasn’t really a control mechanism. For one person to track, maintain and improve upon all of that seemed both impossible and not the most effective use of the data.”

Learning about data maturity

Keen to bring a more sophisticated approach to data management, Garry quickly began moving the organisation’s reporting from basic spreadsheets to relational databases like Access and SQL. By streamlining and removing duplication, he also managed to reduce the 1200 regular reports to 150. Although clearly making strides with these improvements, he still felt there was a serious gap but wasn’t able to put his finger on, or describe, exactly what it was. The turning point came when Garry was introduced to the concept of data maturity in 2018. When he began researching and discovered Data Orchard’s Data Maturity Framework, Garry felt he could immediately make sense of the issues that needed to be addressed.

“I think that was the first time I've found a language to use to explain what I was seeing that the business needed. I knew that the number of reports seemed to be spiralling, that the core data needed to be better and better kept, that we needed to attribute more value to our data… But to bring it all that under one umbrella of data maturity, suddenly made it really easy to explain to the rest of the business.”

Garry completed a free Data Maturity Assessment and presented the results to the leadership team, who immediately bought into the assessment. With a commitment to making improvements, but a recognition that the action plan would need to be far-reaching and resource-heavy, the next step agreed was for Garry to complete assessments for all areas of the business to get a more detailed picture. Garry used slightly adapted versions of the assessment questions and, in consultation with teams across the organisation, completed assessments for the different parts of the business. The findings were then cascaded to teams across the business, with Garry holding around a dozen sessions for executive and leadership teams through to team leaders.

“We came up with a heatmap of where everyone was, and it really showed that there were obvious differences across different parts of the organisation. It also provided a great structured guide for actions and what we’d need to achieve, but, more than that, the framework really acted as a communications aid to introduce people to the idea of data maturity. We were coming from a position where my role was seen as ‘the spreadsheet guy’, but I was introducing them to the idea that, if we really got control of our data, we could do so much more than that.”

Investing and resourcing

By mid-2019, the task at hand was looking bigger than one data analyst role’s. Garry’s job role was reformatted and renamed Business Intelligence Analyst, to more accurately reflect the wider role in shaping data strategy that he had taken on. And, in a big win, agreement came to create a new Business Intelligence Assistant role. The new role was filled in early 2020, with the plan being for the Assistant to take over much of the ‘business as usual’ reporting function, to free Garry up to focus on data maturity strategy and improvement plans.

The COVID-19 pandemic put paid to these plans initially. As home-working was adopted, the newly-formed Business Intelligence team were more in demand than ever. In the absence of face-to-face catchups, senior management had a bigger requirement for physical reports, and reporting on how clients were being supported during the pandemic also needed to go to funders and regulators.

During the course of this incredibly busy period, they have made continuous improvements, even if not in the structured, planned way that Garry had hoped for. The team have moved to interactive dashboard reporting using Microsoft Power BI, and have built databases using Win Forms and web apps. And with each of these improvement projects comes another team that wants more of the same…

“That’s really the challenge now – to balance the resource we have against the demand that is building in the organisation for a more structured way of doing things. We’ve invested in new tools and technology (such as a new CRM system for example), and it was huge to be able to double the team from one to two. But we are still just a team of two, so we need to plan our steps carefully to make sure when we start something we can resource it properly. One thing the assessment and framework helps with in that regard is that it helps chunk up the journey and put it into chronological steps.”

Organisational Data Maturity Assessment

One of the new tools the team will be using is the Organisational version of the Data Maturity Assessment tool. Three years after Garry first used the free version, the plan is that teams across the organisation will gradually complete updated assessments using the Organisational tool, with assistance from his team. The tool will provide detailed individual reports for each area and an overall dashboard view, plus the option to add bespoke questions. As well as the tool’s organisational reporting and dashboard, there are also plans to integrate and aggregate the reports with Honeycomb Group’s existing tools.

Garry hopes this will be a significant next step to his vision for a more data mature organisation:

“What I’d love to see, and what I think would be a really huge boost to the businesses, is performance reporting that’s as fully automated as possible to replace the current heavily manual reporting that goes up through the directors. To make that straight from source systems, as automated as possible, with interactive dashboards and straight into the hands of the board members. I think it will improve our transparency, using these principles of data maturity. Beyond that, I can see a time where we’ll be using open data and more sharing of data with other organisations. We still have some work to be ready for that, but we’re on a trajectory to get there.”

Highlights

Tool used: Data Maturity Assessment Tool

Outcomes:

• Increased understanding and recognition of data maturity across organisation.

• Recognition for wider remit of data role.

• Creation of new data role.

• Approval for new tools and systems.

Future plans:

• Use of Organisational Data Maturity Assessment Tool.

• Possible addition of third data role.

• Further investment in systems.