Finding Focus

The most important decision data product teams make is how to spend our time. We have lots of things we could do. It’s easy to get caught in cycles where we jump from urgent request to urgent request without making progress on important priorities.

Through experimentation I have found the the processes, systems, and routines that help my team gain focus and consistently work on our most important priorities. I created this Golden Data Pattern to help other do the same.

I have generalized the Pattern so it can be used as is. It can be tailored for specific needs or used as inspiration to create new patterns.

Questions

Send me a message at ashendrickson@yahoo.com if you have questions about this Golden Data Pattern or how to use it.

The Golden Data Pattern

There are three steps to creating and maintaining focus for my team. :

1: Define the Current State (”Product Edges”)

• Provides the information we need to start changing our work.
• Included in this Pattern -> A template-backed guide to understanding and documenting our current state.

2: Create the System

• Enables simple ways to understand what we are working on (and what we are not working on).
• Included in this Pattern -> Design specifications for the system to track work from start to finish. This includes the details on my implementation and other implementation options.

3: Build the Routines

• Drives transparent decisions about our work as strategies and priorities evolve.
• Included in this Pattern -> Descriptions of planning routines for our data product team and key stakeholders to ensure consistent and transparent decision making for the data product team.

How it helps

These processes, systems, and routines enable my team to:

• Shift to more valuable work through automation, documentation, and decommissioning.
• Build trust key stakeholders through transparent decision making.
• Expose and navigate tradeoffs between competing priorities.
• Review and adjust priorities with key stakeholders.
• Evaluate technical and business priorities together to make room for both.
• Re-focus on current and future priorities when things get chaotic.

How it works

1: Define the Current State

• Document common demands on our time, current projects, and future projects
  • Regular Work: What Regular Work could be automated or stopped?
  • Common Ad Hoc Work: What Ad Hoc work could be reduced with automation, data products, or documentation?
  • Asset Inventory: How can we reduce demands on our time by consolidating or decommissioning existing assets?
  • Work in Progress: What projects are in progress?
  • Future Work: What projects might we work on in the future?

2: Create the System

• Product Discovery:
  • Track and evaluate potential future change to our data products.
• Product Delivery:
  • Track and plan work to change our data products.

3: Create the Routines

• Discovery and Delivery routines for the:
  • Data product team
  • Key stakeholders
  • Product Manager