What challenges interfere with data-based decision-making?
Petrides: Decisions are often impaired by organization-level silos and information politics. • Information silos At an institution, there may be certain data kept in the finance department, another set stored in student services and other records housed in enrollment. Instead of communicating and sharing this information, silos are formed preventing the integration of these data for more system-wide decision-making. • Information politics What often happens is that people get proprietary towards data. They block the flow of information, control the use of data for their own benefit, and in doing so, enact their own interpretation of the classic phrase, information is power. Situations that are sustained by information politics include: • A departments funding being cut even though data shows the importance of a particular program, leaving the staff with no incentive to share the data in the future. • An employee working hard to justify a project with impact data, who attends a meeting
