The Data Product Mindset When does data become a product?
May 8, 2025
Beth Lyons, a seasoned consultant and former product leader at Tableau, dives into the fascinating world of data products with co-founder Anthony Cosgrove. She defines when data transforms into a product, highlighting the importance of user value. The duo explores the blurred lines between data product management and engineering. Beth shares her unique prototyping approach, illustrating how messy iterations lead to polished outputs. Plus, they discuss the evolving role of AI in making data product managers more hands-on and technical.
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From Matching Logic To Real Product
- Beth built a trade-matching algorithm that created identifiers linking buy and sell FX trades to enable trade-level P&L reporting.
- The work mainly was data manufacturing, and the product became real only when the id was integrated into a client P&L report that users saw.
Value Defines Data As A Product
- Beth frames most upstream work as an asset rather than a product until it delivers direct user value.
- A data field can enable many potential products but only becomes a product when it generates measurable user impact.
Reconstructing Bank Timestamps
- Beth described building a liquidity report that infers bank timestamps by matching bank feeds to payment vouchers using a linear program.
- The timestamp reconciliation was heavy manufacturing work and only the visualization of liquidity would be the actual product for users.