January 17, 2013

Big Data, Big Opportunities, Big Challenges Part 2

Jan. 17, 2013 at 08:43 AM | By Todd Gibby | Comment Count

At Hobsons, we have learned a ton over the years in terms of how to manage complex implementations of CRM, application management systems, retention solutions, and major marketing campaigns. As with any other large scale IT or campus-wide project, to be successful, we have to define objectives, identify barriers to success, acknowledge human elements, and measure results. At Hobsons, we are also in the early phases of our own efforts to leverage Big Data in a responsible manner that provides value to our client community. Applying these lessons, here are some questions to get started with Big Data.

Objective-Setting / Value Proposition:

Why do we need Big Data? As technology continues to proliferate not only in students’ lives, but also the back office it comes imperative to tie these inputs together to analyze impact. It is often useful to look at any campus projects through two lenses: does it help students to be more successful or institutions to be more effective? It must do one or the other. If it does both, fantastic. If it does neither…we may want to kill the initiative.
What problems does it solve? Again this goes back to how you plan to use the data. Most institutions have gobs of data … there is no shortage there. The real question is whether you can gather it in a usable form and with what degree of rigor / frequency you review it. As one sage VP of admissions mentioned to me recently: You can have all the data you want, but if you are not consistently measuring it, your analysis will be off.

Barriers to Success:

As it always does, success or failure comes down to People, Strategy, Processes…and THEN technology. Do you have the right ones? Are they aligned? Have you addressed them in the right order? Do you have a reasonable assessment of the funding required, and are all the key stakeholders bought into that business case?
Have we truly thought through the governance elements of this project? How will it be managed, whom will be allowed access, and what are our policies in terms of what we will and absolutely will not do? This quickly gets into the all-important topics of security and privacy? Clearly, these are ultra-sensitive topics, but that doesn’t mean that they should be the bogey-man from which to fearfully hide. Rather, they deserve an open discussion and one that leverages the institutions existing policies, which have doubtlessly received hours of previous analysis, discussion, and approval.

Human Elements / Communications:

When we start dealing with zeroes and ones, we somehow often forget that there is a human side to all of this. It is with this in mind that some of the most important questions are also the most basic: Who needs to be involved? Who needs to be aware? Who will be impacted (students, faculty, staff, alumni); and how will all of this be communicated among all of them? A common tool that works well for all of the above is the popular RASCI decision-model, which we have used successfully in many different settings / projects.

Results:

Finally, let’s not forget to do some “right-to-left” planning: What does success look like at the end…or at key milestones? What will make us jump for joy and high-five each other? What 1-2 decisions do we hope to make in a more informed way, and what intelligence do we need to accomplish that? Let’s not get so hung up on the countless possible measurements and metrics that we lose sight of that one main thing. If we can inform one major set of decisions, we may materially change the way we do business…now that is a result worth celebrating.

As mentioned above, at Hobsons, we are currently early-on with a number of Big Data initiatives. Although I can’t report any key successes yet, I am encouraged by the immense potential it offers not only to our business but, most importantly, to our clients. In short, Big Data is a welcomed resource that can enable our organization and institutions alike to maximize institutional effectiveness and empower the world-changers of tomorrow.

Want more on Big Data? Continue reading this series in Big Data Continues...

Todd Gibby is president of Higher Education at Hobsons. Connect with Todd on Twitter (@tgibby) and LinkedIn.