#73 Ship-Posting and Cake Recipes: Measuring the Return of Your Data Initiatives - Interview w/ Katie Bauer

https://www.patreon.com/datameshradio (Data Mesh Radio Patreon) - get access to interviews well before they are released Episode list and links to all available episode transcripts (most interviews from #32 on) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZmCIinVgIm0xjIVFpL9jMtCiOlBQ7LbvLmtmb0FKcQc/edit?usp=sharing (here) Provided as a free resource by DataStax https://www.datastax.com/products/datastax-astra?utm_source=DataMeshRadio (AstraDB) Transcript for this episode (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ls5QawrOffb3VGIfZCmPYHG0v729Ye7Gu7oKRaOYi8c/edit (link)) provided by Starburst. See their Data Mesh Summit recordings https://www.starburst.io/learn/events-webinars/datanova-on-demand/?datameshradio (here) and their great data mesh resource center https://www.starburst.io/info/distributed-data-mesh-resource-center/?datameshradio (here) In this episode, Scott interviewed Katie Bauer, a Data Science Manager at Twitter in their Core-Tech group. To be clear she was not on representing Twitter, only her own opinions. The main topic of discussion was how to measure the value and success of your data projects/implementations. Some very useful advice from Katie that can feel a bit obvious when said but is VERY often and easily overlooked: measure for what would make you drive actions. If getting a 10x higher than expected or 90% below expected result isn't going to change your decision, while it may be interesting information, is it really important? If not, don't waste the time to measure it. Especially early on in your data measurement maturity. The point is also to get to an objective evaluation, not overly precise measurements. Set yourself up to improve and iterate. Don't make this hard on yourself. She also gave the pithy statement: what is valuable is not necessarily valued. Katie has a cake analogy that plays into data maturity well. Think about your need and the other person's capability regarding making a cake. Do you need a fancy cake for wedding or is this for a 3 year old's birthday party? One, you pro