Disruptive Data: How To Do Agile Development With Your Data Silos

Performing agile development while data silos hold you back is like trying to go dancing with a weighted vest.

If your business suffers from this issue, your progress will suffer and you’ll lose out to the competitors who don’t have this problem holding them back.

This shouldn’t be a surprise as, by definition, a data silo is a collection of data that’s hidden from the rest of your business. When they occur, they inevitably sabotage collaboration, make it harder to find actionable insights, and scupper attempts at agile development.

Unfortunately, the reality is that they’re a serious problem for many organisations. And inevitably creep in when teams and systems don’t share data or integrate with one another effectively.

With this in mind, we’d like to share how you can turn things around and achieve innovative agile development by combating data silos.

Create a shared language

Data silos also occur when individuals and teams can’t communicate their data needs with one another. For example, if you have two developers using two different coding languages, they’ll struggle to collaborate. This makes agile development a pipe dream.

Using solutions such as the CloverDX data model bridge makes it easy for developers to get on the same page. This also empowers non-technical business users to collaborate on topics they couldn’t previously.

Build a community and collaborative culture

The cultural norms of your business will also affect how your teams work with data. To ensure your culture is well aligned and doesn’t create data silos, work towards:

Establishing (or re-affirming) company values that promote collaboration
Clarifying the shared vision of the project so teams want to work together
Understanding objections and fears to sharing data, and tackle these diplomatically

As well as working on your culture, build a data governance framework that prevents and removes data silos. This will ensure your staff have clear guidance on how to handle data effectively.

Get more control of your data

You’ll struggle to move with agility if your data tool doesn’t provide the control or autonomy you need.

After all, it’s a pain when you can’t export a database and you have to perform mundane data processes manually. This eats up the time you’d rather deploy on complex, high-value tasks, and will ultimately make your projects anything but agile.

To tackle this, use a tool that lets you control your data and brings automation to your business. Then you can focus on performing agile development.

Use a data platform that connects everything

As your business grows, you will inevitably connect more applications and data sources to your systems. It’s a necessary part of modernization. However, if you don’t have a tool that can connect all your data together, data silos will inevitably build up.

Modern solutions make it quick and painless to connect all your systems so you can integrate your data, and de-silo your infrastructure.

One platform to bring everyone together

Data silos are often a major road block for businesses looking to deploy agile development.

Fundamentally it’s an issue of disconnection in your business, with individuals and teams unable or unwilling to work together. Bridging these gaps is critical to de-siloing your data and achieving the agile development you need.

A solution that connects all your data systems, helps staff speak the same language, and gives you the power to dominate your data will change how your business operates and make agile development a reality.