Let the masters guide you on your Chief Data Officer (CDO) journey! The CDO is a new business role, and just starting to appear in state, local, and federal governments. Like many new roles, the CDO’s responsibilities are continuously evolving and changing. Most institutions are not consistent with assigning CDO responsibilities, and this lack of standardization is of great concern. Also, some say public and private sector CDOs are dramatically different. We don’t believe that. We think CDOs are more similar than dissimilar. More importantly, though, we think private and public CDOs can learn from each other. We’ve created this book to help all CDOs, public and private. This book is about ideas and recommendations which have broad application—on the shop floor, in a conference room, or even in legislative chambers. Apply our advice to smooth your ride during the CDO journey. Use our ideas and suggestions in ways that work for you, because every organization and data journey is different. These ideas are here to help you avoid some of our frustrations. We hope this can reach executives, managers, legislators, and others leading organizations to help bridge explanations of new vocabulary, ideas, and processes. Ultimately, we think this book will help you create data-centric value for your organization.