Adopting Producty Approach to Data Products at RBC

In this week's episode of Experiencing Data, I'm joined by Duncan Milne, a Director, Data Investment & Product Management at the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC). Today, Duncan (who is also a member of the DPLC) gives a preview of his upcoming webinar on April 24, 2024 entitled, “Is that Data Product Worth Building? Estimating Economic Value…Before You Build It!”  Duncan shares his experience of implementing a product mindset within RBC's Chief Data Office, and he explains some of the challenges, successes, and insights gained along the way. He emphasizes the critical role of understanding user needs and evaluating the economic impact of data products—before they are built. Duncan was gracious to let us peek inside and see a transformation that is currently in progress and I’m excited to check out his webinar this month!

Highlights/ Skip to:

• I introduce Duncan Milne from RBC (00:00)
• Duncan outlines the Chief Data Office's function at RBC  (01:01)
• We discuss data products and how they are used to improve business process (04:05)
• The genesis behind RBC's move towards a product-centric approach in handling data, highlighting initial challenges and strategies for fostering a product mindset (07:26)
• Duncan discusses developing a framework to guide the lifecycle of data products at RBC (09:29)
• Duncan addresses initial resistance and adaptation strategies for engaging teams in a new product-centric methodology (12:04)
• The scaling challenges of applying a product mindset across a large organization like RBC (22:02)
• Insights into the framework for evaluating and prioritizing data product ideas based on their desirability, usability, feasibility, and viability. (26:30)
• Measuring success and value in data product management (30:45)
• Duncan explores process mapping challenges in banking (34:13)
• Duncan shares creating specialized training for data product management at RBC (36:39)
• Duncan offers advice and closing thoughts on data product management (41:38)

• “We think about data products as anything that solves a problem using data... it's helping someone do something they already do or want to do faster and better using data." - Duncan Milne (04:29)
• “The transition to data product management involves overcoming initial resistance by demonstrating the tangible value of this approach." - Duncan Milne (08:38)
• "You have to want to show up and do this kind of work [adopting a product mindset in data product management]…even if you do a product the right way, it doesn’t always work, right? The thing you make may not be desirable, it may not be as usable as it needs to be. It can be technically right and still fail. It’s not a guarantee, it’s just a better way of working.” - Brian T. O’Neill (15:03)
• “[Product management]... it's like baking versus cooking. Baking is a science... cooking is much more flexible. It’s about... did we produce a benefit for users? Did we produce an economic benefit? ...It’s a multivariate problem... a lot of it is experimentation and figuring out what works." - Brian T. O'Neill (23:03)
• "The easy thing to measure [in product management] is did you follow the process or not? That is not the point of product management at all. It's about delivering benefits to the stakeholders and to the customer." - Brian O'Neill (25:16)
• “Data product is not something that is set in stone... You can leverage learnings from a more traditional product approach, but don’t be afraid to improvise." - Duncan Milne (41:38)
• “Data products are fundamentally different from digital products, so even the traditional approach to product management in that space doesn’t necessarily work within the data products construct.” - Duncan Milne (41:55)
• “There is no textbook for data product management; the field is still being developed…don’t be afraid to create your own answer if what exists out there doesn’t necessarily work within your context.”- Duncan Milne (42:17)

• Duncan’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/duncanwmilne/?originalSubdomain=ca