🍽️ Workflow Wednesday: Treat Your Data Like Groceries - Select, Curate, and Enjoy

Art by @basilonmypizza: https://lnkd.in/eF8FkWzN - https://basilhefti.ch/

Imagine inviting friends for dinner. You head to a shop where everything is beautifully displayed, labeled with farmer names, organic tags, and allergy warnings. Behind the scenes, someone ensures freshness, removes spoiled produce, and keeps the shelves stocked.

🔄 What if you couldn’t shop for ingredients? You’d have to grow your own produce: a slow, impractical process. The same happens with data: without a well-managed data catalog, teams waste time reinventing the wheel, duplicating efforts, or overlooking valuable insights.

💻 Online shopping is no different. Products come with detailed descriptions, user reviews, return rates, and related blog insights. Plus, with a click, they’re delivered in no time.

📊 Now, apply this to data products. What if browsing a data catalog was as seamless as shopping for groceries? As a data scientist, I often need datasets I don’t have immediate access to. A well-kept catalog offers statistical descriptions, allowing me to assess a dataset’s value before requesting access. Even better, in an organized catalog, the permission request process is integrated. Just like an online purchase.

🛒 The Must-Have Features of a Great Data Catalog:
✅ Clear Descriptions & Technical Details → Understand what the data covers, its types, constraints, and references. ✅ Quality Metrics & Usage Statistics → Track data quality over time and see how frequently it’s used. ✅ Data Lineage & Sensitivity → Know where data originates, how it’s transformed, and if it’s sensitive. ✅ User Comments & Governance → See feedback from others and find out who owns or stewards the data. ✅ Lifecycle Management → Like fresh produce, data has a shelf life. Keep it updated, retire outdated sets, or replace low-quality data. ✅ Built-In Access Workflows → Integrated permission requests make it easier for data consumers to get access.

💡 Like grocery shopping, data driven value creation thrives on clear displays, continuous curation, and strong governance by data product owners.
By embedding these best practices into your workflows, you empower your organization to make smarter, faster decisions.

🍳 Now we’re really cooking with data ;)

👇 Which ingredients (catalog attributes) do you find essential in your data catalog?

Follow me on LinkedIn for more content like this.