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VOLUME 45 | ISSUE 5 | SEPT/OCT 2025
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MANAGEMENT
Data Management Is a Team Sport
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By Courtney Kearney, CPSM and Erica Curtis
DOMAIN 6
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Most people would agree on the importance of protecting a firm’s business assets. After all, your firm’s talent, experience, efficiencies, and corporate knowledge are critical to setting your firm apart from the competition. However, the scary truth is that many firms overlook one of their most valuable assets — data, leaving a vital resource unprotected! Does this happen at your firm?
Too often, business development, project, client, and research data are not seen as a collective asset worthy of firmwide attention. Team members across a firm will often wait for someone else to enter, update, clean, or analyze data, leaving it unattended and unprotected. This neglect turns an asset into a dust collector, exposing your firm to risk.
There’s a simple mental shift you and your firm can make to change this dynamic. Make data management a team sport! No one person or department can handle every data task for your firm. Instead, every single person at the firm should have a data role: editor, auditor, analyst, consumer, leader, or officer. All six roles work together, build off each other’s efforts, and hold each other accountable. Everyone has a spot on the data protection team.

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

Without teamwork, data efforts become siloed, reactive, chaotic—an afterthought. The potential value of data is wasted.
Let’s review three common data problems: duplicate records, dirty data, and no ownership.
  • Duplicate records lead to missed opportunities, which means a loss of income.
  • Dirty data leads to poor reports, a lack of insights and efficiencies, and a loss of profit.
  • No ownership of data leads to finger-pointing and people leaving the firm, which translates to lost revenue.
Poor data collaboration hurts everyone, especially the bottom line.
What changes when everyone has a designated role on the team and works together?
  • Clear accountability because everyone understands what they need to do and why.
  • Shared responsibility because the roles rely on each other, which leads to stronger adoption.
  • Alignment between business goals and data insights because the data is clean and up to date.

The Six Data Roles

It might seem obvious, but a team consists of more than one person. How many firms expect data to be maintained and managed by one person? What if a baseball player went out on game day, stood on the mound, and announced they were a team of one and were going to play the game solo? The other team might be happy, as the solo player would be easy to beat. The same is true with data management. Trying to be a team of one is the best way to fail. You need a team in place to protect, maintain, improve, and build up your firm’s data. There are six data roles that make up a winning team.
Data Editors
Sports team analogy:
Everyone on a baseball team bats, regardless of rank or position.
Role on the team:
Editors enter and update data. Everyone is an editor because everyone is responsible for their own data.
Example:
BD enters a new pursuit into the CRM. Marketing updates the pursuit data. BD updates the win status or reason for loss. Marketing converts it to a project.
Work with teammates:
They require clear processes to know what gets entered and when. Timely data entry impacts the rest of the team, specifically auditors and analysts.
Data Auditors
Sports team analogy:
Strength and conditioning coaches keep the players healthy and strong. Referees ensure the game stays clean and safe.
Role on the team:
Auditors review and validate data accuracy. While everyone is responsible for entering their own data, auditors drive and monitor data hygiene, running reports to make sure data is up-to-date and complete.
Example:
Ensuring every contact has an internal owner, no orphans in the system, and an email address so they receive the firm’s marketing campaigns.
Work with teammates:
They work closely with editors to ensure data entry processes are followed.
Data Analysts
Sports team analogy:
Baseball catchers watch the field and call plays. Video coaches study game film to improve performance.
Role on the team:
Analysts transform raw data into insights, creating visualizations that tell the firm’s data stories. They study trends and patterns to make suggestions for improvement.
Example:
Marketing manager pulling win rates for the year. Analyzing the data by contract type reveals that the firm’s win rate is lowest on hard bid jobs and should no longer prioritize those pursuits.
Work with teammates:
They rely on clean input from editors and auditors and inform consumers and leaders.
Data Consumers
Sports team analogy:
Head coaches make data-driven decisions for the team. They create starting line-ups, decide who’s benched, and, when needed, call the big plays.
Role on the team:
Consumers use data in their daily work. They review data analysis, consume the data stories, and make decisions for the firm.
Example:
Technical staff, leadership, and BD looking at CRM history before an industry event or a meeting with a prospect or client.
Work with teammates:
Their trust (or lack thereof) in the data affects adoption firmwide. They have the authority to keep editors accountable. They rely on the accuracy of the auditors and analysts.
Data Leaders
Sports team analogy:
Team captain and assistant captains set the tone and create team culture while guiding and encouraging teammates.
Role on the team:
Leaders write data policy, set expectations, enforce accountability, and provide resources.
Example:
A principal requires pursuits to be in the CRM, or they will not be reviewed or discussed at meetings. Leadership ties bonuses to proper data collection at project closeout.
Work with teammates:
Leaders connect firmwide goals to role-specific responsibilities.
Data Officer
Sports team analogy:
The general manager takes a bird’s eye-view and makes final decisions for the future of the team.
Role on the team:
The data officer oversees data governance and integration across systems. Ensures decisions at the highest level of the organization are driven by data.
Example:
The firm’s data officer ensures the CRM is aligned with all other systems, including the accounting/ERP system, project management, HR, and email marketing platform.
Work with teammates:
They connect the dots between departments, systems, and strategy to drive effective collaboration.
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How to Recruit a Winning Team

Here are practical steps to begin assigning data roles and creating a collaborative data culture in your firm:
  • Start small: Assign data roles for a single process and move forward one process at a time. For example, focus only on the pursuit process from lead to win/loss.
  • Provide training & documentation: Editors need standards; auditors need checklists. Give frequency of training and modality careful consideration, and ensure all learning styles are covered for the best adoption.
  • Communicate roles clearly: Ensure everyone knows their responsibility. Don’t just assign and forget; follow up regularly to make sure the right people are still in the best roles. At a minimum, check in annually, but bi-monthly or quarterly check-ins are better when implementing change.
  • Celebrate wins: Highlight when data supports a successful pursuit. Reward editors when all contacts have the required data. Communicate often that the data stories and insights are due to data entry and following the required processes.
  • Use process maps: Visualize how data moves through the firm, across teams and roles. We have step-by-step tutorials to create a process map on the CKC website.
  • Always bring it back to why: Tie everything back to the highest goal. Why are you entering contact data? Answer: to create the quarterly report that clients and prospects rave about. Why are we entering pursuit data? Answer: To be effective with our efforts to win the work that pays payroll and keeps the lights on.

Case Study

What’s the worst that can happen without a data team in place? Ask the CEO who got a call from a client: “It seems as though two of your offices have submitted competing proposals for the same job... Do we pick the lower bid amongst yourselves?” Understandably, the CEO was mortified! He set out to ensure nothing like this would ever happen again.
The answer was hiring a Data Officer who fully utilized the CRM system to create transparent communication across offices and implement a culture of data stewardship. The firm decided to categorize data by territory and geographic location, making data entry and select fields required. It was strategic to start small training and tackle the change management of data entry first. Through in-person, hands-on across 14 offices, they were able to bring their data up-to-date and put automation in place to communicate when a pursuit was in a shared territory. The Data Officer sent a monthly newsletter to all users with new documentation and video tutorials.
Each office appointed a clear point person to go to with questions and troubleshooting. These point people reviewed and assigned an internal contact for every company record and contact in the CRM. Whenever someone left the firm, contacts were reassigned, helping with client retention and contact engagement. Overall data accuracy increased. These wins were celebrated in the newsletter.
The Data Officer distributed process maps outlining the new way to enter pursuits with six clear data roles identified. Front and center was the reminder that this change had to be followed 100% of the time by 100% of the people. The why statement — to ensure they never had two offices bidding against each other again — was in the email, on the mapping document, and displayed on the home dashboard of the CRM.

Winning with Data as a Team Sport

Just as it takes architects, engineers, and contractors to deliver a project, it takes all six roles to deliver good data. Don’t be one of the firms trying to protect this vital business asset with a team of one. Instead, assign and support the six data roles and create a data team with room for every person at the firm. With a winning team, you will be able to use your firm’s data to grow and protect the business. Collaboration is the foundation of data-driven firms.
Content Authentication Statement: 90% of this article was generated by human authors. Generative AI was used for brainstorming and drafting an outline.
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As owner and founder of CKearney Consulting, Courtney Kearney, CPSM, leads a team of approachable data nerds dedicated to helping A/E/C firms get the most out of their CRM and data. Her firm provides services ranging from evaluation and implementation to on-call support, training, and system integration—always with a focus on making data more accessible and actionable.
Known for her passion for data, Courtney is a respected thought leader, author, and public speaker. She has served in leadership roles within SMPS at the local, regional, and national levels, including chapter president and co-chair of the Southern Regional Conference.
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Erica Curtis is one of the approachable data nerds and the Marketing & Communications Manager at CKearney Consulting. Erica’s background in journalism and business communications has honed her dedication to clear, effective writing and design. She brings a passion for language and storytelling to every project she leads.
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