Alexander Loth - Decisively Digital

Alexander: What basic guidelines and patterns should always be considered for an expressive visual dashboard?

Patrick:The key goal of dashboards is to deliver insights at a glance. In order for that to be true, the data on dashboards should be visible at all times — which means that they need to be responsive to or optimized for the presentation layers they are used on without requiring users to scroll or click them. To turn a data point into an insight, [a dashboard] also needs to provide guidance to its relative context. It is unclear whether 5 of something is good or bad. Five of something on a colored scale from 1 to 25 turns that data point into an insight.

Alexander: Who should you trust with helping you monitor the changes you are making and testing your dashboard prototype to see if it meets expectations?

Patrick:Three stakeholders come to mind: the owner or creator of the data, the consumer of the data, and — depending on the sensitivity of data — a legal or data-security role that confirms that the data presented respects privacy regulations and conforms with legal requirements.

Alexander:Why should companies set up an Analytics Center of Excellence as part of their digital strategy? What are some strategies for setting this up?

Patrick:To do data analysis right, companies need resources that are skilled to do the job and have the priority and time on their hands to do so. Most of the time, neither of the two is true for people, and teams try to do data analysis on top of what feels like their actual job. Successfully implementing an analytics strategy requires deep understanding of the processes and metrics that drive business outcomes. A good approach to get to the scope of work for an Analytics Center of Excellence is to start with interviewing future consumers of data and business stakeholders to be able to build a data framework for the company.

Alexander:What are your personal top three dos and don’ts for an engaging visualization?

Patrick:Keep the visualization simple and easy to grasp, provide guidance or links to a drill-down, and provide as much context for the data as possible — such as a target KPI or a cohort comparison.

Alexander:Thank you, Patrick. What quick-win advice would you give that is easy for many companies to apply within their digital strategies?

Patrick:Focus on simplicity and transparency.

Alexander: What are your favorite apps, tools, or software that you can't live without?

Patrick:Snowflake, Tableau, DBeaver, MongoDB, Slack, Trello.

Alexander:Do you have a smart productivity hack or work-related shortcut?

Patrick:Respectfully decline meeting invites.

Alexander: What is the best advice you have ever received?

Patrick:We often think about personas and audiences when we build products. The best advice I have received is to actively think about that for most anything we do. In the business world, it helps me tailor the message about something I am seeking approval for to the very target audience I'm speaking to. In the data world, it helps me select the right granularity of data that informs but does not overwhelm.

Chat tools bridge the gap between emails and distractive phone calls. Once conversations turn complex, a video conversation can be a more efficient channel.

Employees can learn at their own pace if they have access to well-crafted training through a learning management system.

Companies have to come up with their own internal data dictionaries for delivering a consistent message.

Edna Conway, VP, chief security and risk officer for Azure, Microsoft

Source: Edna Conway

Edna Conway forecasts the future of business and creates clear strategies to deliver new and secure operating models for a digital economy. She is a sought-after industry influencer, bringing rich perspective forged from more than 30 years of broad and deep leadership success creating new organizations and delivering cybersecurity, compliance, and risk management across a $143 billion technology company. Conway is a builder of new capabilities that achieve lasting and pervasive operational improvement.

Alexander: You are Azure's VP, chief security and risk officer at Microsoft. What is your mission?

Edna:It is an interesting mission because it is a role that didn't previously exist. As a result, I had the great privilege to craft its scope and mission to deliver optimum impact. My team's focus is ensuring that Azure is the most trusted cloud platform on the planet. This mission drives every aspect of what we do.

The core of this mission is ensuring customer trust — trust in the Azure platform itself and trust in us as a partner in their success. Earning that trust requires two digital capabilities: security and resilience.

A comprehensive approach to security fully addresses these concerns:

Physical security

Logical and operational security

Behavioral security

Information security

Intellectual property protection

Privacy

An approach to risk management and resilience must focus on continuing operations in a world-class manner. For my mission that includes the following:

Business continuity and disaster recovery

Anti-bribery and anti-corruption protocols

Human rights and labor rights

Health and safety

Environmental sustainability

Trade and export controls

Alexander: How should business models evolve to survive and thrive in an increasingly digital world?

Edna:The global pandemic has accelerated the pace of the digital transformation journey that so many governments and enterprises were already on. In fact, that transformation became an immediate necessity. It also has uncovered the opportunity we have before us to rethink the efficiency and productivity of our business models.

To thrive in the digital world, we must optimize to leverage human talent to meet the needs of customers. After all, digital capacity has a singular purpose: to serve people, not the other way around.

As we evolve our business models to thrive in the increasingly digital economy, we must consider two fundamentals. First, understand what can and should be automated. Second, undertake a core versus context analysis. Digitize using internal core competencies with your own capabilities and talent. Leverage third-party services and solutions (for example, XaaS 1 ) to optimize the implementation of your digital strategy and drive efficiency.

Working through these fundamentals will allow you to begin to free your internal talent to address strategy, transformation, and the roadmap for the next generation of your business. To thrive in the digital world, we must optimize to leverage human talent to meet the needs of customers. After all, digital capacity has a single purpose: to serve people, not the other way around.

Alexander: How can technology shift the roles and responsibilities of the workforce?

Edna: We need to remind ourselves that technology can often give us insight into performance, trends, and anomalies. That insight can empower us to make changes before the full negative impact of an anomaly takes place. Conversely, such insight can provide us with a view to a positive change that we may not have otherwise been able to appreciate without the “help” of technology.