Data Platform

Data contracts provide a standard way for your organisation to create, manage, and consume data.

We can influence the behaviour of people and processes through the platforms we build and the design decisions we make.

Happy new year everyone! If you had a break over the holidays I hope you had a good one.

The initial idea for data contracts was to create an interface through which reliable and well-structured data could be made available to consumers. Like an API, but for data.

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.