Data incidents are opportunities

Hey 👋 How is it May already?! Here in the UK we have another bank holiday weekend. If you do too, enjoy the time off!

In today’s newsletter I write about the opportunities provided by data incidents.

There’s also links to articles on Data Platform Engineering and data quality.

Data incidents are opportunities

We know things go will wrong when working with data.

Just as with software, it’s inevitable this will happen, because we are working on fast changing complex systems with many upstream dependencies.

It’s how we respond to these data incidents that’s important.

Some data teams try to keep the incidents and the impact of those quiet. They fix (or more likely, work around) the issue as quick as possible, then move on.

Others see data incidents as an opportunity.

They use data incidents as an opportunity to really understand the root causes and consider what can be done to prevent similar incidents from happening again.

They use data incidents to improve their incident response processes, ensuring they work together better and communicate better the next time they have an incident.

Data incidents are also a rare opportunity to get people engaged from across the organisation, from your users downstream to your data producers upstream, and get them together to discuss what can be done to prevent similar incidents in the future.

The downstream consumers provide critical business context on the impact of the incident on their work and key processes.

The upstream data producers likely had no idea their changes can cause data incidents and will start to consider their role in providing data to their rest of the business.

So, the next time you have a data incident, take advantage of the opportunity.

Interesting links

Data Platform Engineering by David Jayatillake

Great article on how data platform engineering and how by investing in the data platform you can empower data/analytics engineers to self-serve and move faster by using standardised tooling.

How to turn Data Quality into Business Value by Charlotte Ledoux

Good tips on measuring data quality and taking actions based on those measurements. Also talks a bit about incidents.

Being punny 😅

Someone has ripped the fifth month out of my calendar. I’m dismayed.

Upcoming workshops

• Implementing a Data Mesh with Data Contracts - Antwerp, Belgium - June 5 2025
  • Alongside the inaugural Data Mesh Live conference
  • ​Sign up here​

Thanks! If you’d like to support my work…

Thanks for reading this weeks newsletter — always appreciated!

If you’d like to support my work consider buying my book, Driving Data Quality with Data Contracts, or if you have it already please leave a review on Amazon.

Enjoy your weekend.

Andrew