Since its inception, the Federal CDO Council has undertaken a survey of its members to better understand how the role is evolving, our member priorities, and their potential challenges. The 2023 survey delved into Agency CDO roles, responsibilities, and available resources and provided insights into the CDOs themselves. This year’s results build upon the knowledge garnered from previous surveys. In addition, this year’s survey introduced a section dedicated to the implementation and integration of Enterprise Analytics across the Federal Government.
In 2023, the survey received 35 responses from agency CDOs – 20 from large agencies, 9 from medium agencies, and 6 from small agencies. Agency size is determined by the number of employees. This response rate is similar to 2022. The 2023 survey gathered information on experience, tenure, and education of members, and responses indicated that:
- Most respondents indicated they are Senior Executive Service (SES) or career General Schedule (GS-15) with over ten years in the public sector and focused on data and analytics. Other demographic characteristics are changing.
- The majority of respondents have been in the public sector for ten years or more, with small agency respondents reporting shorter tenures.
- Educational distribution wide ranging, with education ranging from bachelor’s degrees to Ph.D.s, without professional data and analytics certifications. Programs such as these were likely nonexistent when respondents received their education.
In addition, from 2022 to 2023, the survey indicated changes in the size of CDO teams as well as role of CDO. In particular, CDOs reported:
- Size of teams
- ~14% overall increase in respondents having a Central Data Team as opposed to a one-person CDO Office.
- ~26% of respondents’ Central Data Teams had up to 5 FTEs in 2023 (compared to ~9% in 2022)
- Large Agency respondents had greater personnel resources than both Medium / Small Sized Agencies:
- ~56% of Large Agency respondents reported 5-15 FTEs and 69% reported 5-25 Contractors reporting to the CDO,
- ~43% of Medium Agency respondents reported upwards of 5 FTEs, 57% had 0 Contractors and
- 100% of Small Agency respondents reported having one-person CDO Offices.
- Responsibilities
- Respondent responsibility changed from Primary Accountable Official to Partner in:
- Data Analytics, and
- Information Collection/ Paperwork Reduction Act
- From 2022 to 2023, respondents picked up Partner responsibility for:
- Data Integration,
- Research,
- Information Security,
- Operations Research,
- Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), and
- Artificial Intelligence
- Respondent responsibility changed from Primary Accountable Official to Partner in:
As we share these results, we would like to thank Niel Tseng, Data Scientist at the U.S. Department of Transportation, for his time and effort to analyze the survey responses and developing the summary slides.
For a holistic review of the survey finding, please see the 2023 responses (anonymized), 2023 survey instrument, slides analyzing the data, as well as the 2022 responses and 2022 survey instrument.