It’s perfectly normal to have some fears and anxious thoughts and these often coincide with big life shifts and milestone events, such as moving house, sitting exams, coping with bereavement and job losses. Anxiety can also crop up on a daily basis through stresses at work, financial worries and health issues and there’s a multitude of other factors which like to fuel and contribute to the anxiety monsters hunger!

“In March 2023 the Mental Health Foundation (MHF) worked with Opinium to conduct an online survey of 6,000 UK adults aged 18+ to look at anxiety in the UK population ‘Uncertain times: Anxiety in the UK and how to tackle it’ (www.mentalhealth.org.uk/our-work/public-engagement/mental-health-awareness-week/anxiety-report):

Nearly three-quarters of the population (73%) had felt anxious at least sometimes in the previous two weeks, with one in five people (20%) anxious most or all of the time.

Some groups of people are more likely to be affected by anxiety than others. Nearly all young people (18 to 24 years) in our research (86%) had felt anxious in the previous two weeks. For over half (58%), this had stopped them undertaking day-to-day activities.

Other groups more likely to report feeling anxious were:

• Single parents (89%)
• LGBTQ+ people (89%)
• Carers (84%)
• 18 to 34-year-olds (86%)
• People from a minority ethnic community (84%)
• People with a long-term physical health condition (LTC) (82%)”

Everyone reacts differently to stressful situations and has their own personal triggers… but what do you do when you start to feel this way on a daily basis? When those little niggles and feelings of unease, begin to grow and gradually start to take over your day and prevent you from doing the things you love?

We all know the feelings too well… your heart starts to race, you begin to sweat and you have difficulty concentrating. The more you try to ignore it, the more the anxiety grows and refuses to subside… and that’s when the panic sets in. The best thing to do in these situations is to stop and ground yourself. Try to acknowledge what you are going through and try not to run away from the feelings, however intense and uncomfortable they may be.

The aim is to find ways to soothe your mind and help ease it back on track. Whatever works for you, whether it’s listening to a calming meditation, getting outside in nature, going for a brisk walk, playing your favourite soundtrack or putting pen to paper and journalling your thoughts. Another way to keep anxiety at bay is by making healthy lifestyle choices, for example reducing your caffeine and alcohol intake, having a regular sleep pattern, maintaining a nutritious diet and keeping well hydrated.

The science bit…
When we are feeling anxious, our nervous system is on ‘high alert’. This goes back all the way to prehistoric times when our ancestors had to be on the constant look out for danger and we were in ‘Fight or Flight’ mode. Luckily for us we no longer have to watch out for woolly mammoths or sabre tooth tigers, but in today’s society we are constantly worrying about other uncertainties in life such as the cost of living crisis; how to pay the bills and put food on the table, look after our loved ones and protect our planet. In his article ‘The Evolution of Anxiety: Why We Worry and What to Do About It’ (www.jamesclear.com/evolution-of-anxiety), James Clear (Author of the book ‘Atomic Habits’) goes into great detail about what scientists call the ‘Immediate Return Environment’ and describes the things which have an immediate impact on our life and can be solved in the present moment and the ‘Delayed Return Environment’ and the things that can’t be solved instantly and he discusses in detail the implications of living in both environments and how anxiety affects these.

So in a nutshell, we need to learn to be kind to our minds and accept anxiety as part and parcel of everyday life and instead of trying to fight the beast we need to learn to tame it and embrace it and only then will we start to live in harmony with our anxiety.

Where to get help if you are struggling with anxiety:
Don’t suffer in silence and always reach out for support if you are struggling with anxious thoughts on a regular basis.

If you do find you are in a crisis situation and need urgent help:

·        Call 999 and ask for an ambulance
or

·        Go straight to your local A&E or ask someone to help if you are unable to get there yourself.

Listed below are contact details for several other places you can reach out for help and advice:

Anxiety UK – National charity helping people with anxiety
Helpline: 03444 775 774
Text support: 07537 416 905 (open Mon-Fri 09:30-17:30)
www.anxiety.org.uk

Mind – National mental health charity supporting mental health
Infoline: 0300 123 3393 or email info@mind.org.uk
www.mind.org.uk

Samaritians – 24 hours a day confidential advice.
Freephone 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org.uk
www.samaritans.org

Shout – UK’s 24/7 Crisis text service for mental health
Just text SHOUT to 85258
www.giveusashout.org

Papyrus – Prevention of young suicide
Hopeline247: 0800 068 41 41
www.papyrus-uk.org

Jane Dennis
Head of Wellbeing and Office Manager
Oakland Group

The post Accepting Anxiety appeared first on Oakland.

For a better answer, let’s start by describing what we mean by a cloud data platform, as it can mean a few different things. Generally, it refers to a series of different components and resources deployed in the cloud to ingest, store, process, and report upon data. The main aim could be for analysis or storage purposes, say to bring data from many different sources to one location. There may be other elements or angles, but this is a usual setup for many.

Back to that six-week deadline.

This can be threatened by a number of different factors, which may demand a longer turnaround time, and have a wider range than just “it takes a while to configure.”

The main reason we see is down to how much of a data platform you are trying to “build” in a six-week period. It is unrealistic to think designing, building, deploying, and embedding a full end-to-end cloud platform in this timeframe is possible. Could you potentially have rotating teams to allow for a 24/7 turnaround, including your stakeholders and a development team? This isn’t for the fainthearted there is a lot of work to complete and factors to consider which are wrapped into achieving your deadline.

Establish what is it you’re trying to build.

Gathering enough information and finalising requirements alone (should!) take weeks or even months to truly ensure the designed solution is suitable. To hit a 6-week deadline, it should be clearly defined what the overall aim is and how you’re going to get there. An end-to-end data platform also regularly has multiple data sources, transformation steps and aspects to complete before handover or go-live is on the cards.

But, if we change the view to focus just on a specific use case, and a narrow element of the data platform development process – then we start to see results in that six-week timeframe. It suddenly becomes a lot more realistic to build elements or the foundations of a cloud data platform under these conditions. When you acknowledge that the solution will not be a complete one but rather a start or focused build then there are definitely big achievements that can be made in shorter time periods.

Keep the scope TIGHT.

The main hurdle is to ensure that both the development team and the stakeholders agree on the defined, tight scope. If requirements have been gathered, it is possible to develop a small proof of concept (PoC) or a minimal viable product (MVP) which would get a solution off the ground and help realise value quickly. This could be one or maybe two of the following examples:

• Deploying a series of cloud services which are part of a wider architecture
• Setting up an initial data source connection and outputting data in a cloud database
• Developing transformation steps for pre-existing data sets
• Creating a simple data product

Ideally there needs to be a balance between speed and delivery to meet the deadline. A consideration needs to be made on the longevity of the solution as you should be expecting to deliver work that is long lasting – there is rarely a point in investing in building something that falls apart tomorrow.

These smaller projects should hold their own against the longer, more transformative programmes which help develop capability over a longer period of time. Doing a “drains up” review, redesign, and redevelopment is often necessary but getting buy in, proving value and ensuring the business doesn’t grind to a halt in the meantime means there is a place for quicker “lighthouse projects”.

Tight deadlines require an experienced, disciplined, but flexible delivery team.

Building a modern data platform brings its own swathe of challenges, especially when up against the clock. The delivery challenges around building cloud data platforms from a project or programme perspective are broad and warrant their own blog post, but it is worth noting some key factors at play here.

The team developing the platform need to be equipped, informed, capable and flexible.

• Equipped: Developers need have the required access to any necessary source systems, cloud platforms or infrastructure. Fast builds require rapid access and little work often gets done when waiting for weeks for support tickets to be fulfilled. Ensure the developers have what they need to do their job.
• Informed: This can take many forms, but often this is both being aware and comfortable with the delivery plan/target architecture but also having access to stakeholders to ask important questions which arise. Governance and decision making are important factors to stop “cowboy development” and deliver the right solution but waiting for emails for weeks throttles delivery and that 6-week deadline. It’s also rare that “too much documentation” is ever provided ahead of delivery – so this alongside efficient communication is often key.
• Capable: The delivery team need to be technically competent when it comes to building the platform but also when it comes to managing it. Data platform implementations draw on a range of talents from developers, architects and cloud engineers to ensure the solution is built efficiently to specification but – let’s not forget the need for experienced project/programme managers and business analysts. These are vital to clarifying the specification and handling a plethora of unforeseen changes and risks which could threaten that 6-week deadline.
• Flexible: Plans change and every project has surprises – it’s the way they’re handled which decides the success of the project. The delivery team need to work in a tightly managed agile approach, adapting and overcoming whatever changes or unforseen factors jump in the way. Responding to stakeholder feedback and managing expectations fall into this category to deal with what can happen with the solution as it develops. Working with the cloud helps a lot given the very adaptive nature of building with technology – but this is always within reason as any change takes time.

In summary…

Building a cloud data platform in six weeks is a challenging task, and it largely depends on the scope and complexity of the ‘platform’. However, it may not be enough time to build a fully-featured and scalable cloud data platform that meets all of the desired requirements. It requires careful planning, a skilled team, and a well-defined scope. To increase the chances of success, it’s important to have a well-defined project plan, target architecture and a skilled team with relevant expertise in cloud infrastructure, data engineering, and software development.

Assuming that you have these alongside a clear understanding of the requirements and specifications of the cloud data platform, six weeks may actually be enough time to develop a basic version of a platform for continued future development later.

If you’d like to know more about cloud data platforms? Get in touch by emailing hello@theoaklandgroup.co.uk

Jack Evans is a Principal Consultant at Oakland.

The post Can you really build a cloud data platform in six weeks? appeared first on Oakland.

In this guide, we’ll share the benefits and capabilities of a bespoke data platform so that you and your organisation can make a fully informed decision.

What is a Data Platform?

A data platform works as a central, standardised hub for your data. It manages:

• Data collection
• Normalising data (organising it into a database)
• Transforming data (converting, cleaning and structuring it)
• Applying your data (making it accessible and applicable to its audience).

For an in-depth understanding of what a data platform is, explore our guide.

What are the Different Capabilities and Benefits of Data Platforms?

At its simplest, a data platform helps your audience find its data and the data find its audience. Most organisations that have a desire to get more from their data will, at some point, require a data platform. This is driven by the need to solve common challenges:

A simple, unified system:A data platform replaces lots of different ways of working with a unified system, reducing timeframes and avoiding added costs.

Improved data access: Data that was previously spread across multiple systems and therefore difficult to access is unified in a hub. This lets more people effectively access it.

More compatible systems: Legacy design often makes systems too complex or complicated, making manual ‘stitching together’ unviable. A data platform fixes this, ensuring multiple systems work together as a coherent whole.

Simplified IT: A data platform can replace confusing and complex IT and technology solutions, boosting productivity and lowering costs. 

Better service architecture: With a custom data platform, you can influence the design and service architecture, driving a better customer and colleague experience.

Improved organisational trust in data: Without a unified data system, there is a lack of trust across data outputs, e.g. “My dashboard is right; yours is wrong”. A single data platform can prevent this, creating a similar experience for all and instilling trust in data.

Reduced skills gap: A lack of specific or specialised skills and knowledge can lead to increased technical and resource costs with complex and less accessible systems. A single, modern data platform reduces the chances of a skills gap emerging.

Optimal data usage: Without a data platform, data is unstructured, not commonly understood and then misused. A single source of truth reduces these risks.

Improved data governance: Correctly implemented, a modern data platform should reduce data governance debt, lower regulatory risk, and boost the overall quality of data.

Higher-quality data and insights: Data platforms speed up access to accurate and timely data. With one, you can leverage a greater volume of higher-quality information to better chart your organisation’s future and increase the pace of change.

Reduced IT costs: Data platforms often reduce the growing cost of supporting multiple legacy IT systems, replacing them with resilient, future-proof, flexible solutions.

Improved developer experience: A single, modern system with an simpler developer experience can deliver compliance in line with industry good practice.

Easier reporting: With a bespoke data platform you can simplify reporting processes, ensuring your data products are easy to create.

To survive as a business in this technology-led world, you need to be able to adapt at a pace like never before. You need to be all over your insights, able to access them quickly, and able to present them in the right way.

A data platform enables you to surface those insights and make the right decisions to transform your business. Your data is the raw material you need to introduce new services and products, wow your customers, and differentiate you from your competitors.

How do Data Platforms Work in Practice?

The diagram below represents many data and analytics capabilities coming together to unlock value from organisational data assets. A data platform alone does not create value but requires an intersection of process, people, and technology conceived around the platform to provide its actual value. 

The foundational elements of data ownership in the business set a baseline for platform success. Marrying up good governance with a strong data platform enables the data backbone for an organisation. 

Finally, building processes and organisational structures to deliver compelling data products to users is the realisation of what the platform aims to provide. Bringing these together is the basis for creating value from the data held within your organisation.

What do You Need to Consider When Adopting a Data Platform? 

While they offer plenty of benefits, data platforms are not the holy grail for solving all your problems in one go. 

First, the desired benefits will only come to fruition when there is sufficient governance, as well as standardisation, consolidation and conformity of the data to enterprise architectural standards. 

When considering your data platform, we recognise that most businesses operate from a ‘brownfield’ state, in that they often already possess some of the resources and assets they need to implement a data platform. Your business case, therefore, needs to identify what you can reuse – be that people, processes, technology or partners.

But beware, even with these internal capabilities, many in-house teams struggle because they:

• Overlook the connecting ‘glue’ that pulls people, processes and technologies together.
• Struggle to unlock the core data that cuts across the business and data landscape.
• Try to adopt first principles instead of using established blueprints to accelerate and streamline the development process.

You can learn from these observations by asking the following questions during your business case planning phase:

• What are some known data platform ‘prefabrications’ that will help cut development time and costs, whilst still delivering what we need in accordance with company data architecture, security and other related policies?
• Which business outcomes and functions are best served by the data platform, and what data will be required to meet those needs?
• What has to change for alignment across the business, data and technology communities critical to the delivery and ongoing success of the data platform?

Data Platforms vs. Data Architectures, Data Warehouses, and Data Lakes

With so many data concepts out there, it can be confusing to differentiate one from another. Here’s a brief summary of each:

• Data platform: A system which provides end-to-end data management across your business’s data environment: collection, storage, normalisation, transformation, business intelligence, and data observability.
• Data architecture: The framework that dictates your organisation’s data environment. It’s the plan for how data is collected, stored, and delivered, while the data platform is the system which analyses data and moves it through the architecture to where it needs to go.
• Data warehouses and data lakes: The main place where your data is stored, ready to be analysed and processed.

Choose Oakland as Your Data Platform Partner

Data platforms are a crucial part of modern business, simplifying data and putting it to work to achieve your organisational goals. Our experts have the specialist experience, expertise and cross-sector know-how to create and implement yours to enable your transformation.

Explore Oakland’s data platform service offering today, or contact us to discuss how we can tailor our data platform development to your needs. Want to learn more about data engineering and more with Oakland? Step into the world of data through our blog and podcast. 

The post Why do you need a data platform? appeared first on Oakland.

Who remembers the excitement of writing in a blank exercise book, picking out a new school bag, wearing shiny new school shoes or the thrill of catching up with school friends in person after the long six week summer holiday?

Although, at this time of year as the days begin to shorten and Summer comes to a close, the slight chill in the air can have the opposite effect and make us feel the need to hug the duvet a little bit closer and hit the snooze button! Even hearing the words ‘Countdown to Christmas’ can make us feel the urge to hibernate away until Spring!

On the plus side, the end of Summer can also signal a time for reflection and a renewed mindset, especially following a break from the office and time spent switching off. It’s a time when we are likely to find ourselves firing on all cylinders again and ready to embark on new projects, enhance our learning and development and with a heightened sense of positivity, review our lifestyle choices and overhaul our health and fitness regimes.

When fuel costs and energy bills are escalating and money is tighter than ever, it’s easy to think positivity comes with a price tag and difficult to find reasons to be cheerful, but the good news is, our lifestyle choices don’t need to be expensive and sometimes the best things in life can be free!

Focus on the positive! Practice gratitude by writing down three things at the start of each day that you are grateful for having in your life.

This could be something as simple as:
– a song you love (for lifting your spirits)
– something that makes you smile (for reminding you to enjoy life)
– a sunny morning (providing a beautiful start to your day)

Don’t worry, be happy! Look up daily affirmations and positive quotes to boost your mindset, improve your overall wellbeing and help you to practice being kinder to yourself.

Be inspired! List the names of people you admire and download their podcasts and blogs for advice and motivational tips. There are many people in the public eye who have overcome difficulties or life-changing events and now sharing their knowledge and experiences to help others.

Below are some great podcast examples as a starter:

• Steven Bartlett – The Diary of a CEO podcast /@steven
• Mo Gawdat – Slo Mo podcast / @mo_gawdat
• Dr Ranjan Chatterjee – Feel better, Live More podcast/ @drchatterjee

Everyone has a story to tell! Jot your thoughts down on paper. This can start off as simple bullet points, but once you get into the habit of journalling you’ll find the words start flow and this can serve as a really useful self-reflection tool and help you to create a positive mindset.

Grab some morning sunlight! This is a proven mood booster and including daylight in your morning routine can really start your day off on the right track. The light helps to regulate our circadian rhythm (our natural body clock) and can aid our energy levels and sleep cycles as a result and you also get the added bonus of some fresh air as a result!

See the Webmd.com article on ‘Get Morning Light, Sleep Better at Night’ (Lisa Marshall, 23 March 2002) for more on the benefits of morning sunlight https://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/features/morning-light-better-sleep

Move for Mind! Put a spring in your step and get moving by incorporating 20-30 minutes exercise into your day. Look up local walking groups for hints and tips on places to visit in your area, such as local parks and riverside and canal walks.

Alternatively, head into the woods and experience the Japanese practice of ‘Shinrin-yoku’ or ‘Forest Bathing’, which is great for the relaxing both the mind and body and involves switching off and absorbing the relaxing woodland atmosphere. Even just 10 minutes has been proven to have a calming effect.

See the National Trust’s ‘Beginner’s Guide to Forest Bathing’ here for more details: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/lists/a-beginners-guide-to-forest-bathing

Share the love! Volunteer for a local charity or support group. This helps to support people and makes a real difference in the community, but also helps you to learn new skills, improves confidence, gives you a greater sense of purpose and makes you happier as a result!

Look at sites such as www.getvolunteering.co.uk for more details on how to volunteer.

Boost your brain. Knowledge is Power!

• Join a local library – it’s free to join and you can sign up online. Look up ‘Local Library Services’ at gov.uk for further details on your local branch.
• Seek out free online training courses at freecoursesinengland.co.uk
• Incorporate a power nap for 10-20 minutes during your day. This helps you to feel more alert and can improve your mood. Just don’t nap after 3pm as it could interfere with your sleep at night!
• Sign up to eventbrite.co.uk and other similar forums, and register for free events and workshops to expand your knowledge and meet other like-minded people.

… and finally, Make your Bed in the Morning!

‘If you do the little things right, it makes the big things possible’*.

By doing this you’ve completed your first task, started the day in an organised pattern and achieved a sense of accomplishment. Plus, it also means you’re not tempted to crawl back to into bed again later!

*From the book ‘Make Your Bed: Feel grounded and think positive in 10 simple steps’
Admiral William H. McRaven, 15 June 2017. ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0718188861

The post Accentuate the Positive appeared first on Oakland.

Over the last few years, Power BI has gone from a visualisation tool on the side to become front and centre in the business intelligence (BI) industry. A combination of including the tool in Office 365 subscriptions and adding more and more features over the years has positioned Power BI as a market leader in preparing and presenting data for analysis (5 million subscribers in 2016). Previously where Tableau or Qlik may have been one of the few key players, now Microsoft has a seat at the visualisation table. 

What is “BI”? 

Business intelligence means a few different things – from visualising, analysing to just organising and reporting upon data. All of this helps organisations make data-driven decisions. If you’re a business that can easily utilise all of your data to drive change and streamline processes, then you likely have a modern (or at least impactful) BI setup. Examples of how business intelligence can help include: 

• Identifying market trends 
• Analysing customer behaviour 
• Reporting on priority issues 
• Forecasting profit or loss 
• Simplifying and visualising complex information 

Why use a BI tool at all? 

Visualising data is a powerful thing. When done right, it provides an intuitive shop window on potential insights and data within. When done wrong it can be misleading, confusing, or difficult to maintain and interact with. Visualisation at its worst, a set of reporting and analytics costs a company time and money, and at its best, it can guide them to success. 

Data-driven businesses understand the value not just in having easy access to prepared data but in going a step further to ensure it is an easily digestible format for users – whether this is internal staff or customers outside the organisation. Having a BI tool and a capable BI development team helps build a reporting and analytics capability more than just spreadsheets or databases. The aim is to allow users from the high-level executive board to the tech-savvy analyst to be able to access the information they need quickly and accurately. 

What’s changed? 

None of this information is new, with BI tools such as QlikView, Tableau, and Spotfire offering such reporting capability for a while and evolving with the industry. Power BI is simply a younger player in this industry by comparison with a few offerings of its own. 

What has changed dramatically, however is the way in which data is utilised- especially the scale.  The volume of data being extracted, stored, and processed is ever-increasing and the cloud computing industry has grown to handle this increase. Data engineers now have a variety of data pipelines, templated connectors, APIs, and computational power to move data quickly and automatically from A to B. It’s never been easier to get data out of a system, model it and connect a BI tool for reporting. 

A further change is the way in which a user interacts to seek information. Rather than passively consuming a dashboard or report, there is a push for “self-service” reporting to provide users with the tools and visualisation package to equip them to find the answers to their own questions with ease. Interestingly, this is something Microsoft has embraced with features like the “Ask a question about your data” to auto-generate reporting and insight from natural language input. 

So how did Power BI become so popular? 

Power BI has stormed into the number one spot according to Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms. While this isn’t a definitive yes for Power BI being fit for every use case or scenario, it demonstrates the tool’s popularity. The Microsoft product has quickly become an office staple for many organisations, for multiple reasons. 

As mentioned, the licensing method is attractive to Office 365 users, meaning Power BI Desktop is free, so users can easily develop reports and complex dashboards without having to worry about building a business case for the tool. Microsoft has leveraged their ecosystem to create another product that sits firmly alongside others with which users are familiar. This results in user’s being used to some aspects of the user interface from other office products (Excel, Access) whilst also capitalising on a huge amount of integration potential. 

BI tools have been racing to ease the process of connecting to multiple data sources, creating pre-built connections to a number of different systems, and Power BI is no exception. There is always more to do, but the tool, like its competitors, is able to connect to a huge range of systems, filetypes, and repositories. 

In conclusion… 

Power BI is a tool at the forefront of data visualisation and analytics, but it is by no means the only BI software available. This blog gives a surface view of BI, and at Oakland, we always have more to share on the value of embedding such processes within organisations. For more complex examples of how we’ve leveraged Power BI and other BI suites into our projects, please get in touch by emailing hello@theoaklandgroup.co.uk or calling 0113 234 1944. 

The post The rise of Power BI (and BI as a whole)  appeared first on Oakland.

• Outlining the strategy and tooling to map SharePoint Data into a Data Governance strategy
• How to ingest SharePoint tabular data like CSV and Excel files into a Data Lake and/or Data Warehouse
• How to start classifying your SharePoint data for Data Quality, Master Data Management, and sensitive data exposure.

(Note the following applies mostly to Office 365 version of SharePoint, SharePoint Online, not the on-premises versions of SharePoint that uses different APIs, though would follow the same broad strategy.)

Building an Initial Assessment of SharePoint Structure and Data

To better regulate this space, you first need to assess your SharePoint Structure and data before planning any changes or policy decisions. In essence, you need to know what the current issues are and how much work it’s going to take to reach certain standards of process and data quality.

To be able to crawl a SharePoint site, and understand its contents, you need two things – authentication via linked Azure Active Directory and the Microsoft Graph API, to enable bulk download of data and automate custom actions. Being a web REST API, it can be called through most programming languages and special API debuggers like Postman.

A SharePoint site can be crawled for files by first finding all the base folders, known in the Graph API as Drives, and then searching through all or some of the base folders. Finding all the files does require a bit of work as there is no “get all folders and files in drive” API call we can make – but you can write some code of medium complexity to find all the folders, sub folders and files of a SharePoint Base folder.

Example architecture – note while Azure Active Directory is a requirement, the Graph API can communicate with servers in other cloud environments such AWS, GCP or other locations, if allowed to.

Ingest tabular data into a Cloud Data Lake and/or Data Warehouse

Because every file has a unique URL (web address), that can be retrieved when it is scanned by the Graph API, we can now download all files in SharePoint via the URL into the cloud and convert it to a Data Lake file or Data Warehouse table (there is also more advanced strategies of combining multiple files into one table).

There should be a large caveat applied to this – it’s likely some or even most Excel sheets cannot be ingested into a Data Warehouse if it does not match a pre-determined template or is not machine-readable (examples below on what is machine-readable or not).

This isn’t the end of the road for unreadable files – we can use the SharePoint Crawler we built in the previous step to flag which files are readable or not, with the results helping to start a process to update the data so that it is readable by databases and software programs.

Also, it is possible to read data of other types of files – Word Documents and PDFs, etc. – however, they should match a robust template so a program can read their data reliably or use a Machine Learning Algorithm, however, this approach may give inexact results.

Classifying and Mastering your SharePoint Data

Once your data is in a cloud data source, it can be an easy process to assess your data. Data Governance tools such as Azure Purview can be used to classify your data and detect Personally identifiable information (PII) information or use database tools such as SQL Server’s sensitive data detection tools.

Once classified, you can begin to shape your data mastery, where you choose one “true” version of an object such as Customer, Contract, Project, Product, etc, for other sources to compare against.

However, this can become rather complicated if you have multiple sources of the same data. As such, it’s recommended to use specialist Master Data Management (MDM) software – these often require a Data Warehouse / Data Lake sources, so SharePoint data will benefit from ingestion into the cloud as mentioned above.

But Why?

So why go to such lengths to classify and master your SharePoint data? Mainly due to the consequences of using incorrect/outdated data or unnecessarily exposing sensitive data, some of which are listed below:

• Fines for breaching GDPR
• Fines from financial authorities for incorrect financial information.
• Loss of reputation and future sales for data leaks and incorrect data
• How to improve your SharePoint Site
• Saving rework of data by finding incorrect data, out-of-date data, and removing duplicates.

Aside from this more negative viewpoint, better management of your SharePoint data can also drive more positive impacts, such as the ability to perform additional analyses and grasp a better understanding of your organisation.

As you’d expect, completing this work can be rather difficult, due to the potential amount of data and number of nested folders in a companies’ SharePoint space. However, it can be made easier through automated tooling, such as the scanner mentioned earlier, and with some guidance from those who’ve been there before. We at Oakland have decades of experience in quality improvement from various angles, including people, processes and technology, should you like additional resources in this area.

The post Gain control of your SharePoint Data appeared first on Oakland.

Industry expert, Gartner, suggests that in 2025 some 80% of organizations seeking to scale their digital businesses will have failed because they do not take a modern approach to data and analytics governance (Gartner – Turn Data and Analytics Governance Policy into Action Through Well-Defined Processes, August 2021)

So, for those organizations starting on their data governance journey or simply wanting to further leverage the benefits for their business, they could very quickly come to the conclusion that data governance is at best at a crossroads or, at worst, a crisis!

That said, for those having worked in Data Governance in the past decade, this is not surprising as these debates are nothing new and were being had ten years ago! And this is why Gartner’s downbeat assessment is probably not too far away from the future reality, and traditional data governance is indeed not delivering and is in urgent need of a fundamental rethink.

One exciting new emerging area of thinking is the work being collectively labelled under the umbrella term of “data mesh”. The premise of data mesh is that it connects distributed data across different locations and organisations. A data mesh is designed to ensure that data is universally available, easily discoverable, secure, and interoperable with all the applications that need access to it. Does this then afford us a refreshing way forward?

While the thinking around data mesh is still evolving and immature, it still rightly requires Data Governance at its heart.  Current work makes it clear having this is critical to a successful data mesh implementation.  The crucial difference, though, is data governance in a data mesh solution would be much more decentralised or federated across the organization – or put another way embedded into the business fabric.  Intuitively, this makes sense as those who have implemented data governance in the past and who know that the best “foot soldiers” for delivering a successful Data Governance programme need to properly mobilise a network of data owners, data stewards & data custodians throughout the business user end of an organisation. But now, for the bad news, decentralisation also has clear cost implications. Large monolithic data teams at the core of an organisation require big data remediation budgets, typically only available to the largest corporate national, and international enterprises.

Therefore, so good so far. But if we unpack this logic, on what basis will a move to a more decentralised approach for data governance have any more chance of success than having a more centralised one? Undoubtedly, the same pain points to a successful execution will remain in either operating model?

For example, you would struggle to see how the same challenges and issues that Gartner identified as preventing the success of Data Governance initiatives – the lack of key governance skills, the lack of clarity over crucial roles, the lack of skills & experience to drive governance initiatives, ongoing resistance to governance adoption from the wider business & a lack of leadership to support the initiative – will be addressed simply by moving to a decentralised data operating model.  In fact, in some cases, it may make it harder to achieve.

Indeed, Gartner reveals that the single biggest reason for the failure of current data governance programmes is their lack of a standardised (data) governance approach. Playing devil’s advocate would this be more difficult to overcome in a decentralised model than a centralised.

So, where does this leave us?

It feels that even if the data mesh approach becomes an increasingly important option to drive a business data strategy forward from a technical perspective, it is unlikely to be a “magic wand” that will either refresh or resolve the ongoing Data Governance challenges Gartner warns of.

It seems the same challenges of fixing Data Governance in an organisation will still require the ongoing appreciation of the underlying issues, winning the hearts and minds of business users, and applying data governance in a structured and actionable manner. And without significant budgets for most organisations, such incremental change will need to be achieved through a stealth approach rather than creating an important data transformation initiative. To this end, the Oakland Group has recently written a useful guide on how this might be achieved (Data Governance by Stealth Lighthouse Paper, September 2021).

Data Governance is not at a crossroads as such; instead, it is still on a (long) and challenging journey regardless of the label being placed upon it.

Andrew Sharp is a Data Governance Lead at The Oakland Group

The post Is Data Governance at a crossroads, and does it need a “Data Mesh” refresh? appeared first on Oakland.

From an extensive systematic literature review we were able to put forward a full but rather clunky draft working concept definition of Quality 4.0, together with ten emerging principles. These were then cross-examined using an online survey and interviews with practitioners and experts/advisers, together with a focus group discussion with some members of the European Organisation for Quality. The lines of enquiry were focused on addressing:

• the extent to which organisations have a clear vision and strategy, which includes Q 4.0;
• levels of agreement to the proposed working definition;
• opinions on the level of importance/usefulness of each of the 10 emerging principles, and whether each of them is necessary, and together are sufficient;
• the extent to which knowledge of Q 4.0 is developed throughout organisations;

The analysis also captured the invited qualitative comments made by participants about the proposed definition and principles.

The overwhelming feedback from the online survey was one of positive agreement with the draft definition. For example, of the responses to the question, “Does the definition reflect the concept of Quality 4.0?” 66 per cent agreed or strongly agreed, 27 per cent partially agreed and only 7% (3 respondents) disagreed or strongly disagreed.

This is all referred to in the QW article, of course, and it enabled us to generate a revised user friendly definition: “Quality 4.0 is the leveraging of technology with people to improve the quality of an organisation, its products, its services and the outcomes it creates.”

We were also able to amalgamate and reduce the ten emerging principles to develop a revised set of Eight Quality 4.0 Core Principles, published in the QW article and covering the following areas:

Co-creation of value;

Cybernetics;

Transparency and collaboration;

Cyber-physical systems;

Mutual trust;

Rapid adaptive learning;

Data value;

Technology and combined intelligence;

And for each Core Principle we provided an illustrative example, in the clear and colourful Q 4.0 Infographic presented as a ‘centre-fold’ in the issue of Quality World.

Other key findings from the online survey are as follows:

• The adoption of Q 4.0 is still in its infancy in respondents’ organisations but, where organisations are not adopting Q 4.0 principles and practices, there is an intent to do so.
• There is a need for quality professionals to collaborate with fellow “driving forces,” but some are not being consulted, highlighting the threat that the Q 4.0 agenda could be driven by other disciplines.
• There is a need for a new vocabulary in order to enable quality professionals to collaborate with other disciplines that are involved in Q 4.0.
• Cost reduction is not a primary pressure for these changes.
• It is important to align a Q 4.0 intent with the overall corporate strategic plan – a key element.

The CQI recognises that Q 4.0 is a gamechanger for the profession and this properly structured, wide-ranging and systematic research creates the need for quality professionals to engage with our research outcomes to begin a personal development plan.

We are now in engaged in Stage two of the research, seeking to identify what are or will be the key issues for top managers leading implementation of Q 4.0, around the five core elements of the CQI competency framework: Leadership, Governance, Assurance, Improvement and Context.  This will primarily cover practices – the how, where and who –  so we will be able to understand how organisations are implementing Quality 4.0, or planning to do so, what are the costs/benefits, how are those benefits measured, and what are the implications for senior executive teams and the quality profession.

To access the research and info-graphic the CQI has set up a Quality 4.0 hub that can be accessed here…

https://www.quality.org/quality-4-point-0

Professor John Oakland

The post What is Quality 4.0? appeared first on Oakland.

All too often we beat ourselves up when we make mistakes and given the past eighteen months, we should more than ever, celebrate our successes and achievements and give ourselves a well-deserved pat on the back for our accomplishments.

How many times have you been guilty of feeling like the elephant in the room and telling yourself one, or more of the following?

·         I’m not smart enough!

·         I’m going to lose my job!

·         I’m such a loser!

·         I’m always making mistakes

·         They’ll think I’m an idiot!

·         Nobody likes me!

·         I’m going to fail!

(…if I’m being honest, I can certainly admit to a few of these!)

The ego can be a wonderful thing at the right time and in the right place, but it loves nothing better than melodrama and chaos, feeding off our negative energy and chattering away in our ear, seeking attention like a mischievous child.

Imposter Syndrome is a recognised condition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome) where people often talk about not being worthy or good enough and making comparisons between themselves and others. Feelings of failure, defeat, and a lack of self-esteem often go hand-in-hand.

There is no ‘one size fits all solution’. The main thing is to start by being kind to yourself. Learn to recognise the signs and when you are experiencing the symptoms try not to subject yourself to unnecessary stress.

Find ways, to calm your mind. Write in a gratitude journal and acknowledge the good things in your life, read daily affirmations and motivational books.

It is also really important to build up a solid support network and find your ‘tribe’ to help you get through any difficult times. This can be friends or family, or found through clubs and social networks in which form is most comfortable for you e.g. online, face-to-face.

If you want to socialise and that helps then socialise, but most importantly don’t feel pressured to be around people if you don’t want to. It’s perfectly acceptable to be at home with a book or a boxset, having some downtime if that’s your ‘happy place’.  Make sure you do what is right for you.

Confide in people about how you are feeling, it really will surprise you how many people have experienced similar thoughts and experiences. Do speak to your GP, a mentor or counsellor if you find these feelings are becoming more and more commonplace and your thoughts are beginning to impact on your day to day life. It is so important to reach out for help and there are lots of excellent online services available.

Listed below are few examples of some good resources:

https://www.bacp.co.uk/about-therapy/how-to-find-a-therapist/

https://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/drugs-and-treatments/talking-therapy-and-counselling/how-to-find-a-therapist/

Most importantly, take care of yourself and try to adapt your lifestyle so you have the right balance, especially from a work/life perspective. Factor in the right amount of sleep, maintain a good diet, and take regular exercise.

When you feel under pressure, seek out the simple pleasures in life, embrace nature, dance barefoot, feel the sun on your skin or play your favourite song and sing like no-one is listening! Whatever it takes to re-set your mind and help you begin to feel good about yourself again (I like to practice yoga/meditation and be outdoors whenever I can, but I can also confess to sticking on my favourite 90’s club classics much to the embarrassment of my children!).

Next time the negative thoughts arise try switching things around… start to believe you are smart enough, you are good enough, you are competent and capable and if things don’t go quite to plan (which inevitably they won’t from time to time!), you soon start to develop a comprehensive skillset over time to deal with things calmly and take the necessary steps to recover the situation without allowing that pesky little ego to take over!

Remember… you’ve got this!

Jane Dennis is the Oakland Mental Health Champion

The post What If…? Self-doubt and The Elephant in the Room. appeared first on Oakland.

So, about ALL of that data you have… 

Pushing data into the cloud was once seen as a skill confined to tech companies, who had either started with at least one foot in the door or had the skills readily available to make it happen. However,  it is now much more commonplace for organisations to want to lift and shift their data and operations into the cloud, with the promise of releasing both savings and efficiency gains. 

This move to cloud–centric data usage is something that Oakland fully endorses; it is what comes next that is often the real issue. Moving operations to the cloud is a time–consuming and expensive job, affording it the luxury of its own owner and associated strategy. However, whilst a good strategy may be in place for getting your data away from on–premise systems, a question that will likely stump many companies is what do you plan to do with afterward? 

Shifting an organisation onto a cloud provider isn‘t cheap, which explains why most of Amazon‘s operating revenue is driven by AWS. As such, it‘s often tempting to offset this cost with large projects, similar in many ways to fabled ERP implementations. However, with the promise of significant rewards comes significant risk, and for many companies, this is an unknown area that can often lead to a whole new set of problems. We’ve certainly seen evidence of these issues working with our clients. With sprawling new data architectures designed to link core processes, development teams locked into long projects with little flexibility and struggling with ways of working that inhibit more than they improve. 

And that is why we have a slightly different approach to recommend, something that takes the focus off large–scale returns and instead looks to build an organisation‘s capability to deliver rapid solutions that prove their value. Throughout this and the following article, I‘ll be delving into the world of cloud-based proof of concepts (POCs). These projects combine discrete process elements with the myriad of cloud technologies in order to build out internal capabilities, ways of working, and business investment. They typically run over a much shorter development timeframe with high amounts of business input and a focus on achieving the most value from minimum change, i.e., not chasing the edge cases!  

Through these articles, we‘ll be able to highlight the successes that we‘ve seen first-hand from this methodology, drawing on real-world examples from the past twelve months. 

Where to start on your POC journey? 

So, we’ll assume that you‘re on board with the idea; where would you begin to look for something to turn into a proof of concept, and how can you help make it as successful as possible? Luckily Oakland has lots of experience here, so this is our advice. 

1. It doesn‘t have to be something brand new – Developing a POC doesn‘t always mean you have to build from the ground up; changing how something is done, or its core technology is just as valid and fruitful. 
2. Pick an area that will have strong buy–in, either through interest or the value it may drive. This also doesn‘t have to be a purely “tech“ area either; updating a process related to, say, data governance or improvement cycles using new technology can be a great way to make incremental gains.  
3. Ensure that your POC has an owner, someone to drive it forwards and make decisions. This is key when moving it into production and beyond, both in terms of features and budget! 
4. Consider access to data and environments (does a sandbox exist, or does one need creating?). These can be long–term blockers, especially if an external company is doing the work. This may impact which project you choose. 
5. Factor in the long-term costs of the project, not just the cost to get a minimum viable product; otherwise, you can easily fall at the first hurdle when you try to productionise your POC. 

These may seem rather obvious tips at first glance. Still, we‘ve certainly learned the hard way that it‘s not always the case, with the most common issues being the lack of a strong POC owner and an understanding from the organisation of what it will take to get the finished POC into production.  

Here are a couple of examples that give you a ballpark idea of the costs you could be looking at. 

POC 1 – Converting a process from a proprietary piece of licensed software to work in a more understood and maintainable manner, using open–source tooling and the client‘s cloud environment. The process itself encompassed around £300m in costs per annum and, while being fairly critical, wouldn‘t be too perturbed by delays in development. The initial work was carried out with a £50k budget to test what was possible, with an expected £200k cost from start to finish. 

POC 2 – Taking an in–demand, data–heavy, excel based analysis and developing it into a scalable cloud application. The results of this analysis were an in-demand product, but users wanted a better way to access the information and add additional features. The initial work was completed for roughly £80k, with a total cost of £130k to bring it into production. 

With these examples in mind, it should be possible to put together a shortlist of your viable options, each with assigned owners, stakeholders, and budgets, from which you can pick as many as required to go into initial development. 

Time to get moving?! 

With at least one project to kick off into development, the work can finally start, right? It‘s time for our next piece of advice; don‘t skimp on the planning! This doesn‘t just relate to planning how the work will be split (though always helpful), but other elements such as: 

• When will stakeholders be updated? 
• What are the must–haves and stretch goals of the POC? 
• What decision points are needed and when? 
• What are the criteria needed to be worth productionising? 
• Who is needed at core meetings to keep information flowing? 
• What governance points are required, and what do we need to cover these? 
• What team mix do we need to prevent blockers? 

Once you have this information adequately documented and available to share, you‘re in a perfect place to start. This might eat into your initial development time, but that‘s better than losing a week because you can‘t get a key person to explain how something works, or your decision–maker is on leave! Armed with the plan, the next steps are to start regularly communicating with your internal team and start laying the foundations. This will enable the team to develop something with real potential. Try and follow the 80/20 rule (80% value for 20% effort) and don‘t get hung up on the edge cases that can be filled in later; concentrate on getting the core concept working. 

Wrap up 

So, we‘ve covered the initial process to get started on the POC journey, including a few of our examples and experiences to try and mitigate any of the pitfalls that are associated with development projects! As such, this seems an excellent place to wrap up for now, with my next article going over getting past the cut–off point and where things can fall over moving into production and beyond. 

Richard Louden is a senior data engineer at Oakland

The post Why bigger isn’t always better…. Maximising returns through cloud-based proof of concepts: appeared first on Oakland.