Preface
Hello, and welcome to Managing Data as a Product! I’m excited to share everything I’ve learned about managing data as a product and how this new paradigm can solve recurrent problems in data architectures that, despite huge investment, periodically collapse under the weight of their own complexity, making sustainable evolution a real challenge.
Ironically, the most successful data platforms, those that bring the greatest value to an organization, are often the first to struggle. Their success drives rapid growth in both the number of managed data assets and users, which leads to complexity. This complexity gradually slows down their growth until the platforms become too costly to maintain and too slow to evolve. However, this march toward self-destruction isn’t inevitable. We can rethink how we design data management solutions, so they don’t fall victim to their success but instead exploit it, multiplying the value they generate for the organization while growing.
Managing data as a product allows us to handle growing complexity by modularizing the data management architecture. Each data product is a modular unit that helps isolate complexity into smaller, manageable parts. Over time, the collection of developed data products forms a portfolio of building blocks that can be easily recombined to support new use cases. This way, while the platform’s complexity remains stable as it grows, the value derived from the managed data assets increases. Implementing new business cases becomes simpler, as existing data products can be reused rather than creating new ones from scratch.
However, managing data as a product is a profound paradigm shift from traditional monolithic data architectures, impacting not only technology but also, and especially, the organization. Throughout this book, chapter by chapter, we’ll explore practical, actionable steps to adopt this new paradigm, addressing all key aspects from both a technical and organizational perspective.
As we’ll see, adopting a data-as-a-product approach is challenging, but it’s well worth the effort. This book is a travel guide inspired by my experience, aimed at helping you find the best path for your unique context to successfully navigate this paradigm shift.
