Karys Staddon, Production, Data and Insight Analyst, reflects on Orchestras Live's journey in data maturity, enabled by Data Orchard and their Data Maturity Assessment Tool.

Back in 2020, Orchestras Live used Data Orchard's Data Maturity Assessment Tool to help us better understand how we were using data as an organisation and where we might improve. The Data Maturity Assessment collected feedback from our staff and trustees across seven themes of data maturity: Uses, Data, Analysis, Leadership, Culture, Tools and Skills. It asked questions about how we use, understand and value data throughout our organisation and mapped our scores onto Data Orchard's Five-stage journey of data maturity (from Unaware to Mastering).

At Orchestras Live we collect a considerable amount of data in its widest sense including: quantitative information about the work we produce and how our organisation operates; qualitative data including feedback and quotes, as well as impact measurement, performance indicators, images, videos and the list goes on... We also collect this data from a wide range of stakeholders: our project participants and audiences; our co-production and artistic partners; our team of staff and trustees as well as information-gathering exercises with our sector contacts and beyond.

Back in 2020 we knew we had a wealth of valuable data but we didn't know if we were making the most of it. The results from our first Data Maturity Assessment fed into a new data strategy and helped shape our direction of focus when it came to data over the next couple of years. As part of this we:

• completed a full data audit, which helped identify areas where we could streamline our data collection and processes to ensure we could make the most of the data have;
• created working groups of staff and trustees formed around Arts Council England's Investment Principles, which had a focus on how the data we were collecting could evidence and inform change;
• and more recently, we adopted a new CRM system (GoodCRM), to improve our internal data storage processes for our project data.

My own role took on a much greater focus on data, impact and insight, evolving into its current form of 'Production, Data & Insight Analyst'.

Three years on, Data Orchard offered us the opportunity to retake the assessment and compare our results.

We were delighted to see positive progress in all seven areas of the framework, demonstrating the impact of the increased focus we had given to data across all areas of our work. We also moved from the 'Developing' (fourth) stage to the 'Mastering' (final) stage in Data Orchard's five-stage data maturity journey.

Although this is great news for us, we're committed to continuing on our journey and as a result of the most recent assessment we have updated our data strategy, transforming it into an Impact & Insight strategy with a greater focus on learning and improvement through our use of data. Alongside this, we have identified some key areas of focus for the next few years:

• Data management and data protection - ensuring that our growing team is informed and confident in using data responsibly
• Predictive analysis - increasing efficiencies and helping us to identify where our resources can have the greatest impact
• Sharing more data - both internally with a larger staff team, and with the people we co-produce activity with
• Data visualisation - ensuring that we can communicate and present our richer, more complex data effectively

Following an internal review of the second assessment, Sarah Derbyshire (our CEO) and I spoke to Data Orchard to reflect on Orchestras Live's experience, which has been featured as a case study by Data Orchard. You can read the full case study and findings on Data Orchard's website.