I’ve been doing some organising and clearing out recently.

I seem to ebb and flow between super tidy and cluttered on an almost monthly basis.

As I was going through the motions of scanning some old documents and ditching the physical copies, I started to wonder if it’s even worth it…

“Will I ever even use these again?”

“Is having them online even worth the risk?”

“What if someone managed to gain access and then I become a victim of Identity Theft?”

Quite the quandary!

I won’t say what I ended up doing with them… some stories a better left a mystery… even ones about ancient payslips.

It got me thinking though, how much data do some companies have lying around, gathering dust in some data centre?

We say that data is the new most valuable thing around, supposedly worth its weight in gold, but how much of that gold actually reaches the bottom line?

Lets draw some comparisons:

• If a line of code sits in a repository, commented out, untouched and unexecuted, does it add any value?
• If data is stored, secured, and maintained, but never sold or used to derive any tangible insights, does it add value?
• If you’re paying for something, but it gives nothing in return, is it an asset?

Referencing Lean principles — a lot of how we build software today sits upon these — a key tenet is identifying and eliminating waste.

Waste, in lean terms, refers to any activity or process that does not add value. Applying this to data, having heaps of it lying dormant becomes analogous to ‘inventory waste’.

It’s like keeping mountains of unsold products in a warehouse, not only does it not generate value, but it also incurs costs in storage, security, and potential missed opportunities.

Similarly, thinking on the principle of ‘Overproduction’, if we’re amassing data without a clear purpose or plan to process and analyse it, are we not overproducing?

It’s like a bicycle manufacturer collecting thousands of car parts every day, just because the market says they have value.

Overproduction leads to unnecessary costs and runs the risk of becoming obsolete before its even been used.

From another perspective, the principle of ‘Non-utilised talent’ is yelling at us here. We invest massively into data scientists, analysts and expensive warehouses, but if we’re not putting the data to work, is it worth the cost?

At face value, data may seem like an asset, but until we get it moving, until we dust it off and put it to work, it will remain; our modern gold, shining in the cupboard for no one to see.

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So, I’ll finish off with a few questions:

• At your company, how often is data revisited after its collection?
• Are there any pockets of ‘dormant data’?
• How do we shift our data-mindset so we don’t become complacent?

I’m keen to hear your insights, experiences, and thoughts on this.

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As we navigate the data-driven age, how can we ensure our data — much like our own possessions — is always in motion, always driving value?