The Office of Management and Budget issued the 2020 and 2021 Federal Data Strategy to support the implementation of the Foundation for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018. The Federal Data Strategy provides a list of actions and goals to help federal agencies improve their data practices and leverage data as a strategic asset. This report addresses the action “Assess Data and Related Infrastructure Maturity,” which appears as Action 3 in both the 2020 and 2021 Federal Data Strategy Action Plans.

In May 2023, the Data Governance Division of the Office of the Chief Data Officer (OCDO) conducted the inaugural Data Maturity Assessment at HUD. The assessment model is based on the Social Security Administration’s A²CM² model, which was developed to incorporate people, processes, technology, data, analytics, and culture. HUD’s assessment involved the active participation of twelve HUD program offices, which submitted their self-assessments focusing on four key attributes of data management: data, technology, analytics, and data culture. In a collaborative effort, HUD’s Customer Experience (CX) team, operating under the Office of the Chief Financial Officer, joined forces with OCDO to integrate CX-related questions into the assessment process.

HUD’s Data Maturity Assessment assesses the agency’s maturity in the areas of Data Governance and Data Management. The assessment model consists of five maturity levels:

• Level 0: Not Applicable - Capability not applicable to the program area,
• Level 1: Initial No Capability - Capability not addressed,
• Level 2: Managed Ad-Hoc Capability - Capability addressed in an ad-hoc manner,
• Level 3: Defined Formal Standardized Capability - Capability normally addressed with standardized documentation,
• Level 4: Quantitatively Managed Consistent Monitored Capability - Capability constantly addressed and governed and,
• Level 5: Optimized Ongoing Improvement of Capability - Capability reviewed regularly to enable continuous improvement.

The assessment model embedded a scoring system to measure each subcategory numerically using five maturity levels ranging from 1 (no capability) to 5 (continuous improvement) and weighted equally. Based on the assessment results, HUD’s data maturity overall score is 2.86, indicating a level 2 (Managed Ad Hoc Capability) trending towards level 3 (Defined Formal Standardize Capability). These results indicate that there are significant opportunities for the agency to enhance its data management and analytics capabilities that are currently being addressed in an ad-hoc manner.