136 - Navigating the Politics of UX Research and Data Product Design with Caroline Zimmerman

This week I’m chatting with Caroline Zimmerman, Director of Data Products and Strategy at Profusion. Caroline shares her journey through the school of hard knocks that led to her discovery that incorporating more extensive UX research into the data product design process improves outcomes. We explore the complicated nature of discovering and building a better design process, how to engage end users so they actually make time for research, and why understanding how to navigate interdepartmental politics is necessary in the world of data and product design. Caroline reveals the pivotal moment that changed her approach to data product design, as well as her learnings from evolving data products with the users as their needs and business strategies change. Lastly, Caroline and I explore what the future of data product leadership looks like and Caroline shares why there's never been a better time to work in data.

Highlights/ Skip to:

• Intros and Caroline describes how she learned crucial lessons on building data products the hard way (00:36)
• The fundamental moment that helped Caroline to realize that she needed to find a different way to uncover user needs (03:51)
• How working with great UX researchers influenced Caroline’s approach to building data products (08:31)
• Why Caroline feels that exploring the ‘why’ is foundational to designing a data product that gets adopted (10:25)
• Caroline’s experience building a data model for a client and what she learned from that experience when the client’s business model changed (14:34)
• How Caroline addresses the challenge of end users not making time for user research (18:00)
• A high-level overview of the UX research process when Caroline’s team starts working with a new client (22:28)
• The biggest challenges that Caroline faces as a Director of Data Products, and why data products require the ability to navigate company politics and interests (29:58)
• Caroline describes the nuances of working with different stakeholder personas (35:15)
• Why data teams need to embrace a more human-led approach to designing data products and focus less on metrics and the technical aspects (38:10)
• Caroline’s closing thoughts on what she’d like to share with other data leaders and how you can connect with her (40:48)

• “When I was first starting out, I thought that you could essentially take notes on what someone was asking for, go off and build it to their exact specs, and be successful. And it turns out that you can build something to exact specs and suffer from poor adoption and just not be solving problems because I did it as a wish fulfillment, laundry-list exercise rather than really thinking through user needs.” — Caroline Zimmerman (01:11)
  
  
• “People want a thing. They’re paying for a thing, right? And so, just really having that reflex to try to gently come back to that why and spending sufficient time exploring it before going into solution build, even when people are under a lot of deadline pressure and are paying you to deliver a thing [is the most important element of designing a data product].” – Caroline Zimmerman (11:53)
  
  
• “A data product evolves because user needs change, business models change, and business priorities change, and we need to evolve with it. It’s not like you got it right once, and then you’re good for life. At all.” – Caroline Zimmerman (17:48)

• “I continue to have lots to learn about stakeholder management and understanding the interplay between what the organization needs to be successful, but also, organizations are made up of people with personal interests, and you need to understand both.” – Caroline Zimmerman (30:18)

• “Data products are built in a political context. And just being aware of that context is important.” – Caroline Zimmerman (32:33)

• “I think that data, maybe more than any other function, is transversal. I think data brings up politics because, especially with larger organizations, there are those departmental and team silos. And the whole thing about data is it cuts through those because it touches all the different teams. It touches all the different processes. And so in order to build great data products, you have to be navigating that political context to understand how to get things done transversely in organizations where most stuff gets done vertically.” – Caroline Zimmerman (34:37)

• “Data leadership positions are data product expertise roles. And I think that often it’s been more technical people that have advanced into those roles. If you follow the LinkedIn-verse in data, it’s very much on every data leader’s mind at the moment:  how do you articulate benefits to your CEO and your board and try to do that before it’s too late? So, I’d say that’s really the main thing and that there’s just never been a better time to be a data product person.” – Caroline Zimmerman (37:16)

• Profusion: https://profusion.com/
• Caroline Zimmerman LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caroline-zimmerman-4a531640/
• Nick Zervoudis LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nzervoudis/
• Email: mailto:carolinez@profusion.com