Blog

Beware the tech sweetie jar!

If you like shiny new gadgets, an Energy and Utilities trade show is usually a sweet shop designed with you in mind. But just because it’s tempting doesn’t mean it’s good for you. I hear so many tales of woe when I go to these shows. Things like control engineers having to look across ten…

Azure Bicep – Deploy a Data Platform in One Click

Azure Bicep is a declarative language for Azure infrastructure, it is the successor of ARM (Azure Resource Manager) templates. Bicep is one of the languages through which Azure has enabled the deployment of IaC (Infrastructure as Code).   What is Infrastructure as Code Infrastructure as Code is the declaration of compute, networking and infrastructure resources…

Accentuate the Positive

For many people, the month of September can bring back fond memories of a new school year and the anticipation of wiping the slate clean and starting afresh. Who remembers the excitement of writing in a blank exercise book, picking out a new school bag, wearing shiny new school shoes or the thrill of catching…

Where to start with data governance tooling?

Good Data Governance is becoming an essential component for organisational growth and resilience in an increasingly data-driven world. The challenge for Data Governance practitioners is how to support their organisation along the journey to high data maturity and effective governance. To help with this journey, Data Governance tools are often considered, but with a multitude…

The rise of Power BI (and BI as a whole) 

The rise of Power BI (and BI as a whole) Over the last few years, Power BI has gone from a visualisation tool on the side to become front and centre in the business intelligence (BI) industry. A combination of including the tool in Office 365 subscriptions and adding more and more features over the…

What happens when your employees think they are doing better with Data Governance than they actually are 

The classic start point in understanding your Data Governance need in an organisation is to assess your data maturity. Once you have chosen which data maturity assessment to use, this assessment will tell you where you are doing well and not so well.  Then as the theory goes, it will allow you to work out…

Is Starburst The Analytics Engine for Data Mesh?

At Oakland, we’re proudly tech agnostic. What does that actually mean? We can work with whatever tech our clients already have or have set their sights on using. That doesn’t mean we can’t review or recommend tech solutions, but we don’t receive any incentives to push one solution over another. We like it that way…

Digital transformation in utilities: An uphill battle?

This won’t surprise you, but digital transformation is really hard. It’s even harder when you’re working in a heavily regulated industry with legacy systems, messy data, and impatient stakeholders. We can all wax lyrical about how things should be (predictive maintenance, anyone?) but getting there is a tricky journey for a large energy or utility…

How does traditional Data Governance get ready for Data Mesh? 

Much has been written on the technical changes arising from more and more Data Mesh deployments as organisations seek to achieve a step-change in collecting, organizing, and utilising their data assets. But far less has been written about the non-technical changes that will be needed to achieve such a change in general and Data Governance…

Is Data Mesh a potential Data Mess?

Since we re-emerged from lockdown, the Data & Analytics industry has seen a massive boost and investment in data as businesses escalate and turbocharge their data agendas on a technical and non-technical basis to ensure they have the best digital presence.  Throw in the emergence of Data Mesh as a potentially new and better way of organising, processing, and delivering data to organisations and you have all the potential ingredients for a perfect data storm.    Over the last few weeks,…

How to Create a Data Strategy: Part 2 – Define

Previously in our series on creating a data strategy, we discussed the importance of discovery and establishing a current state assessment. This week, we’re exploring the next step in the data strategy journey – how to define the ideal future state for navigating your data strategy and determining the data capabilities required to get you…

The five signs your Data Governance activities are working

Wondering how to kick start your Data Governance programme? You’re in luck then; there are an overwhelming number of books and articles on how to do exactly that. These include the classics from Rob Steiner on Non-Invasive Data Governance https://amzn.to/3q6BPCX and the thought-provoking John Ladley with the concisely titled book Data Governance https://amzn.to/3q6o3QV. The Oakland…