The VALUE Operating Model Canvas

The operating model can sometimes feel a bit nebulous. Not because it’s unimportant, but because it’s often not seen as something that D&A teams need to think about. It’s rarely the first thing on the table when a strategy is put together. Now, I’m not saying every D&A team overlooks this. But in my experience, it’s more common than we would like to admit.

My passion for operating models started back when I led my first data team. We were centralized, disconnected, and often seen as the report churners at the end of the line. No real influence, no seat at the table. That stung, and it made me ask: “What’s the real problem here?”

Since then, I’ve worked across a range of organizations large, complex, messy ones, and the same theme kept emerging: there is no one-size-fits-all operating model.

Every organization has its own culture, value system, politics, and power dynamics. Your data team needs to fit within that reality, not sit outside of it.

I studied org culture, read (a lot) and eventually signed up for a Masters in Org Psychology, because I wanted to understand not just the structures, but the behaviors that sit underneath them.

In parallel, I started building tools, canvases, frameworks, practical things to help leaders implement strategy in the real world, not just in slides.

So, today I am introducing: The VALUE Operating Model Canvas

I’m a pragmatist at heart, and this canvas is a hands-on way to help D&A teams deliver real business value. Too many strategies fail, not because of ambition, but because they focus on tech, not outcomes. I go on about value a lot, and that’s because I’ve learned the hard way what happens when it’s missing an the scars to prove it!

The VALUE Operating Model Canvas is a framework to help organizations move beyond vision decks and buzzwords, and actually operationalize D&A in a way that delivers measurable impact.

It focuses on 5 critical components:

👉 V: Value Outcomes: What strategic business outcomes are you solving for? Not platforms. Value.👉 A: Activation Flows: How does data flow through to decision-making, action, and impact? Where does it break?
👉 L: Leadership & Culture: What mindsets, behaviors, and responsibilities are needed to drive adoption and trust?
👉 U: Unified Enablement: Are your platforms, governance, and delivery models actually enabling progress or creating friction?
👉 E: Ecosystem & Accountability: Who else is in the data value chain? How is responsibility shared across partners, vendors, and internal teams?

This is more than a framework, it’s a diagnostic, a strategy blueprint. It’s designed to help CDOs, CIOs, COOs and business leaders build an operating model that’s actually fit for purpose.

So, if your data strategy feels misaligned, overly technical, or hard to scale, maybe it’s time to rethink the operating model behind it.

Drop me a message if you would like to discuss this in more detail.