S5 | E11 | Speed to Value: The Benefits of Data Product Management with Darren Wood, Data Product Leader at BBC

In Episode 11, of Season 5 of Driven by Data: The Podcast, Kyle Winterbottom is joined by Darren Wood, Data Product Leader at BBC, and they talk about the benefits of Data Product Management, in which they talk about:

• The helpfulness and collaborative nature of the data community
• How the BBC is advancing digitalisation and personalisation
• Understanding the user journey through touchpoints and insights
• Why data products are about structuring data and extracting value
• The key role of organisational understanding in maximising data product value
• The three critical stages in the data product lifecycle
• The four phases that follow the creation of a data product are introduction, growth, maturity, and decline
• The challenge for data product managers in pre-empting decline and making tough decisions
• Why speed to value is critical in data product success
• The key differences between data teams and product teams
• Why a roadmap is essential for prioritisation and decision-making
• How splitting a roadmap into reactive, proactive, and strategic elements enhances focus
• How understanding value can help quantify business impact
• Why adopting a business mindset means treating colleagues as customers
• The importance of ‘eating your own dog food’ in data product teams
• Why treating the data team as a mini business changes how they operate
• The four phases of an effective discovery process: discovery, definition, development, and delivery
• The key difference between data product management and traditional product management—why MVPs in data often don’t reach end users before they are fully functional
• The ongoing debate between domain-oriented, centralised, and decentralised approaches
• The varying responsibilities of a data product team, and why alignment with business value is key
• Why stepping into a data product manager role requires conscious awareness of its challenges and opportunities

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