Today, everyone is discussing about Data as a Product concept as part of the data mesh paradigm that sets interoperability and requires a product thinking approach. Every single data product must be feasible, usable and valuable. What does this ultimately mean?
For a delivered product to be feasible, usable and valuable, it is necessary from the beginning to address and to set characteristics within the design such as discoverable, addressable, understandable, truthful, natively accessible, interoperable, valuable and secure. Some of the mentioned characteristics are solved by technical concepts (event streaming, CQRS, data virtualization), and some by sociotechnical patterns (DDD, Team Topologies, DevOps, Data Quality). Still, it is crucial to emphasize the reason from the beginning for the existence and use of the given product. That is why it is best to start with the product discovery phase, which through the actual need (pains, gains and job to be done), will cover all the mentioned characteristics to adequately meet the critical needs. One of the essential elements is the existence and use of the Data Contract concept, which describes the way of using each Data Product and its final consumers.
In this session, through a practical example, the goal is to show how we can implement critical values from the product discovery phase to the sustainable implementation of a data product using a Data Contract.
