115 - Applying a Product and UX-Driven Approach to Building Stuart’s Data Platform with Osian Jones

Today I’m chatting with Osian Jones, Head of Product for the Data Platform at Stuart. Osian describes how impact and ROI can be difficult metrics to measure in a data platform, and how the team at Stuart has sought to answer this challenge. He also reveals how user experience is intrinsically linked to adoption and the technical problems that data platforms seek to solve. Throughout our conversation, Osian shares a holistic overview of what it was like to design a data platform from scratch, the lessons he’s learned along the way, and the advice he’d give to other data product managers taking on similar projects.  Highlights/ Skip to: Osian describes his role at Stuart (01:36) Brian and Osian explore the importance of creating an intentional user experience strategy (04:29) Osian explains how having a clear mission enables him to create parameters to measure product success (11:44) How Stuart developed the KPIs for their data platform (17:09) Osian gives his take on the pros and cons of how data departments are handled in regards to company oversight (21:23) Brian and Osian discuss how vital it is to listen to your end users rather than relying on analytics alone to measure adoption (26:50) Osian reveals how he and his team went about designing their platform (31:33) What Osian learned from building out the platform and what he would change if he had to tackle a data product like this all over again (36:34) Quotes from Today’s Episode “Analytics has been treated very much as a technical problem, and very much so on the data platform side, which is more on the infrastructure and the tooling to enable analytics to take place. And so, viewing that purely as a technical problem left us at odds in a way, compared to [teams that had] a product leader, where the user was the focus [and] the user experience was very much driving a lot of what was roadmap.” — Osian Jones (03:15) “Whenever we get this question of what’s the impact? What’s the value? How does it impact our company top line? How does it impact our company OKRs? This is when we start to panic sometimes, as data platform leaders because that’s an answer that’s really challenging for us, simply because we are mostly enablers for analytics teams who are themselves enablers. It’s almost like there’s two different degrees away from the direct impact that your team can have.” — Osian Jones (12:45) “We have to start with a very clear mission. And our mission is to empower everyone to make the best data-driven decisions as fast as possible. And so, hidden within there, that’s a function of reducing time to insight, it’s also about maximizing trust and obviously minimizing costs.” — Osian Jones (13:48) “We can track [metrics like reliability, incidents, time to resolution, etc.], but also there is a perception aspect to that as well. We can’t underestimate the importance of listening to our users and qualitative data.” — Osian Jones (30:16) “These were questions that I felt that I naturally had to ask myself as a product manager. … Understanding who our users are, what they are trying to do with data and what is the current state of our data platform—so those were the three main things that I really wanted to get to the heart of, and connecting those three things together.” – Osian Jones (35:29) “The advice that I would give to anyone who is taking on the role of a leader of a data platform or a similar role is, you can easily get overwhelmed by just so many different use cases. And so, I would really encourage [leaders] to avoid that.” – Osian Jones (37:57) “Really look at your data platform from an end-user perspective and almost think of it as if you were to put the data platform on a supermarket shelf, what would that look like? And so, for each of the different components, how would you market that in a single one-liner in terms of what can this do for me?” – Osian Jones (39:22) Links Stuart: https://stuart.com/ Article on IIA: https://iianalytics.com/community/blo

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Are you an enterprise data or product leader seeking to increase the user adoption and business value of your ML/AI and analytical data products? While it is easier than ever to create ML and analytics from a technology perspective, do you find that getting users to use, buyers to buy, and stakeholders to make informed decisions with data remains challenging? If you lead an enterprise data team, have you heard that a ”data product” approach can help—but you’re not sure what that means, or whether software product management and UX design principles can really change consumption of ML and analytics? My name is Brian T. O’Neill, and on Experiencing Data—one of the top 2% of podcasts in the world—I offer you a consulting product designer’s perspective on why simply creating ML models and analytics dashboards aren’t sufficient to routinely produce outcomes for your users, customers, and stakeholders. My goal is to help you design more useful, usable, and delightful data products by better understanding your users, customers, and business sponsor’s needs. After all, you can’t produce business value with data if the humans in the loop can’t or won’t use your solutions. Every 2 weeks, I release solo episodes and interviews with chief data officers, data product management leaders, and top UX design and research professionals working at the intersection of ML/AI, analytics, design and product—and now, I’m inviting you to join the #ExperiencingData listenership. Transcripts, 1-page summaries and quotes available at: https://designingforanalytics.com/ed ABOUT THE HOST Brian T. O’Neill is the Founder and Principal of Designing for Analytics, an independent consultancy helping technology leaders turn their data into valuable data products. He is also the founder of The Data Product Leadership Community. For over 25 years, he has worked with companies including DellEMC, Tripadvisor, Fidelity, NetApp, Roche, Abbvie, and several SAAS startups. He has spoken internationally, giving talks at O’Reilly Strata, Enterprise Data World, the International Institute for Analytics Symposium, Predictive Analytics World, and Boston College. Brian also hosts the highly-rated podcast Experiencing Data, advises students in MIT’s Sandbox Innovation Fund and has been published by O’Reilly Media. He is also a professional percussionist who has backed up artists like The Who and Donna Summer, and he’s graced the stages of Carnegie Hall and The Kennedy Center. Subscribe to Brian’s Insights mailing list at https://designingforanalytics.com/list.