Data Platform

Ben Watson at Nandos, a South African restaurant chain operating in 30 countries, has a great write up on their modern data platform with data mesh and data contracts.

Following on from yesterday’s note on the API Mandate and data contracts, I wan’t to be clear you don’t need to mandate data contracts to get adoption.

I wrote yesterday how it’s best to validate as early as possible.

But there are times that might not be possible, maybe because:

I see data contracts as being at the cross-section of best practices.

In particular, they take the best practices from APIs, Data Governance, and Platform Engineering.

I mentioned yesterday how by using friction we can influence how users behave and how the business is organised. That’s because friction is a great lever

Yesterday I wrote about Conway’s law and the challenges it causes in organisations where data teams are placed in a separate part of the organisation to where the data is generated.

A self-serve data platform is one where its users can autonomously create, manage and consume data.

A data platform is one of those terms that can have a different meaning for different people.

The change of focus from accessibility to dependability is a business transformation, and like any transformation it is going to take some time.

Yesterday I wrote how data teams often start with accessibility, which helps you get started, but leads to a number of problems: