As CIOs work to transform their data cultures, many are falling into a trap by doing the same thing over and over again yet expecting a different result. You can escape that trap by looking beyond technology-only solutions to create future fit data cultures.

CEOs are (finally) understanding the importance of the invisible data systems and processes that exist within their organizations. With that comes expectations and pressure on CIOs, as well as chief digital officers and chief analytics officers, to use data for better decisions as executives rush to find ways to demonstrate that their organizations are data-driven at their next speaking gig or board meeting.

Organizations invest millions in software and systems, chasing the data-driven status. They build data warehouses, data lakes, and even data lake houses to chase this dream. This creates piles of tech on top of tech, more dashboards, more software-as-a-service products, and advanced technical trainings, all without stopping for a moment to consider the people side of the decision-making process.

While the tech sets the stage for an insights-driven transformation, nurturing a people-centric data culture is as important, especially as tech and data executives understand how employees are, and are not, making good decisions. A future fit data culture should answer this key question:

How do we motivate humans to leverage or adopt our new solutions to inform their daily decisions?

Join us at Technology & Innovation North America September 29–30 in Austin, where I’ll be presenting a session entitled “Drive More Decision-Making That Matters.” In this session, we’ll evaluate how humans learning to use new technology to make insights-driven business decisions need a bit more than a single link to a product or training to break boundaries or personal habits. You’ll be able to learn our future fit best practices for creating a scalable data culture and learn how you can help curious explorers evolve into leaders who will actually consume the insights that your teams are crafting. And as a bonus, you’ll learn the five uncomfortable questions you need to ask so that your employees can stop reinventing the wheel and start driving decision-making that matters.