What is a data contract?

I enjoyed this post by Ryan Collingwood on what the 🤬 is a Data Contract? (which he also published on LinkedIn). It’s a great summary of some of the qualities he feels define a data contract.

I particularly liked the following:

It evolves as part of an ongoing conversation concerning value creation

Because: agreement is temporary and if the agreement doesn’t serve the new reality people will find ways to work outside of the agreement, thus nullifying any other benefits.

That’s a great point, and one that often gets missed.

If the data contract is to remain useful and relevant there needs to be an ongoing conversation between those producing the data and those consuming it.