Notting Hill Genesis won the silver award in the data management category of the inaugural Housing Technology 2024 awards. Shae McCalla, head of data governance and performance at Notting Hill Genesis, explains more about their prize-winning data management project.
Notting Hill Genesis’s data governance approach started in early 2022 and has become the backbone of our data strategy. To start with, we worked closely with our executive board to find out where our data has hampered attempts to meet our objectives, show where improvements could make a tangible difference and then mobilise.
We worked to understand the maturity of the organisation and reviewed the different models we could adopt, considering the lessons we have learned from previous data improvement programmes.
Iterative and agile
Using all that information, we decided to take a project-based, iterative and agile approach, focusing on areas of high risk and high interest. We built a team of data governance experts, growing our internal talent pool and supporting the development of technical skills to write queries and create great visuals that the business could engage with.
We developed our framework and methodologies while delivering workshops and engaging colleagues along the way to identify and solve the biggest challenges posed by poor data.
The support provided during each project included bespoke training for each new data governance role and automated rules to monitor and track the condition of our data in real time, which the business could then test and sign off so they could really take over ownership of the data. We had a process for identifying and tackling new data issues which meant the teams were left equipped to get on and use the packages of work to accelerate the achievement of their aims.
Cross-team relationships
We also engaged with our colleagues, building up good relationships with our architecture, security, software engineering, analytics, data protection and infrastructure teams as well as our project management offices. We developed and updated the relevant policies, ensured efficient processes between us and the various teams and ultimately gained business alignment in our direction of travel so we know our work is having a positive impact on the wider business and, by extension, the service provided to our residents.
Because the framework has ensured that data condition improvements are linked to key business benefits and the teams can track data condition improvements over time, we can see that the various teams are motivated to make use of it.
The teams can ‘bank’ the benefits and see the impacts so the results aren’t just an arbitrary completeness number; this has been the subtle but important shift from our earlier ways of improving data.
Gold dust
What is gold dust for us is that the teams now understand and relate to outputs from the work we’ve done and can see the value it gives them in their day-to-day work. They can now see that if they make improvements to the data, they will have 95 per cent of the data they need to plan their programmes, as opposed to ‘I have 130,000 individual pieces of quality data, but I’m not sure how that’s helped’.
One of the key differences in our projects is that when they end, the support continues; we go back frequently to provide friendly help as and when needed. This might be technical support, training, problem solving or whatever is needed to keep the good work going.
Data governance continues to be a key part of our data strategy. It helps us to mitigate risk and respond to changing regulatory arrangements; our approach aligns us well with the sector-risk profile on data condition and management. It also provides improved insights and decisions because the better-conditioned data we are putting in front of colleagues is now believed and used.
It’s enabled our asset management colleagues to create reports supported by more accurate data as well as giving significant operational and commercial benefits, where poor data had previously hampered productivity and created waste.
Analytics and data science
It’s also unlocking advanced analytics and data science techniques, both of which depend on having a solid foundation of good, clean data that’s trusted and governed effectively. It has created momentum to extend this work in order to introduce master data management, data loss prevention, data cataloguing and much more.
We have governed and improved the data we use for forecasts, key components, building height, sales, service charges (phase one) and fire-risk assessments. Work is planned for the next financial year to expand further into the business to help improve our customer data, property creation data, the second phase of service charges’ data improvement and data governance support for the migration of information to new systems. We’re also aiming for further assurance against regulatory requirements by expanding data governance against our statutory data return and consumer standards.
Recognising good data
Through our work so far, we’ve reached a place where the importance of good condition data with strong governance and ownership is fundamental to the wider business having trust in the data it needs to run and meet its strategic aims. Our executive board talks openly about its importance to the work we do and it’s a key part of our ‘Better Together’ corporate strategy.
We have board metrics on data condition as well as a data governance report which goes to our executive board. As mentioned at the start of this article, in March we were proud to win an award for data management at the Housing Technology 2024 conference. At a time when everyone is focused on cost, we’re demonstrating value and are growing the reach of our framework.
Shae McCalla is the head of data governance and performance at Notting Hill Genesis. The housing provider won the silver award for data management at the Housing Technology 2024 awards.
