Data strategy development with Valleys to Coast Housing

Client: Valleys to Coast Housing
Date: April 2020
Work: Data strategy development

Valleys to Coast Housing is a housing association serving the communities in and around Bridgend in South Wales. Within the organisation leaders felt that they could be making better use of data for decision making and performance. They asked us to work with them to help them develop a data strategy. 

We undertook user-research interviews with staff and managers from across the organisation to understand the strengths and areas for improvement in different parts of the organisation. We produced a Discovery report sharing our findings and this was distributed to managers across the organisation for review.  

We then organised two workshops for a large group of managers and leaders. These workshops enabled the team to agree their aspirations for data across the organisation and to begin to identify key barriers and opportunities for achieving their aspirations. 

We took all of this information and mapped where they were and where they aspired to be onto our data maturity framework. This helped us to draft a clear strategy grounded in the reality of the organisation but based on an understanding of what is realistic for similar organisations. 

 Polly Thompson is IT Director at Valleys to Coast, she said:

“We appreciated Data Orchard CIC’s collaborative approach. They worked with us to help us draft a strategy that meets our particular needs and our aspirations. We really liked the fact that they looked at all aspects of the organisation: factoring in leadership and culture alongside skills and tools. And finally we valued that they are a social enterprise with a mission to help organisations like ours. They really share our values and it was great working with them.”

If you’d like our help with data strategy in your housing association please get in touch.