Organizations keep their data in a lot of different places: onsite, in the cloud (another person’s data center) or in an all-in-one data warehouse. Often, this data is siloed. But if an organization could harness the power of its data and become a data-driven organization, it would be able to grow and compete more effectively. The company could move mountains — or so the idea goes. So why do data projects fail, and how can changing the organization’s culture turn things around?

Creating a solid use case for data is like cooking a great meal. You need the correct ingredients, or data. You also have to take special needs into consideration (is anyone allergic to any ingredients? is the data sensitive, subject to regulation?). With both food and data, you want to know where it’s sourced (is…