Launching my first course on Data & AI Product Management
I want to help data professionals identify, demonstrate, and get credit for value-adding work
We love to talk about how business leaders need to gain "data literacy", but in truth it goes both ways: Most data teams haven't learned how to speak the language of the business (which is primarily about $ / € / £ / ¥!), and it’s holding them back.
Do any of these sound familiar?
You don’t know what the data pipelines, models, dashboards, and other outputs you work so hard to create are being used for. Who uses your dashboards? What does the data science team do with the data you send them? How do the business stakeholders use the reports they get every week?
Even if you know what your outputs are being used for, you don’t know how they impact the business commercially. Have they helped increase revenue? Reduce costs? Avoid fines?
Your team functions like a service desk: Requests come in, and you do some triage/prioritisation, but generally it’s about picking up tickets and delivering them
You get no visibility or notice, let alone a say, on whether data upstream from you changes - instead, you find out about e.g. a schema change after it's happened, because suddenly something has broken.
It is not uncommon for a stakeholder to have forgotten they requested a dataset or report from you by the time you send it to them.
Everything you do is treated like a project: Once it’s done, it’s done. You don’t generally stay in touch with the users, gather feedback, plan improvements, release new features - if that happens, it’ll be because a new request came through for it.
If any of this sounds relatable, you’re far from alone. The service-oriented model and way of working is the default for data teams in most organisations. It results in piles of technical debt, wasted or low-value work, inefficiency, stress, and attrittion.
It’s also the reason I feel so passionately about helping data leaders and data teams adopt a product-centric model.
To that end, I recently built my first course, Value from Data & AI: How to demonstrate & maximise your impact. I delivered it for the first time a couple of weeks ago to the 20 most senior folks at a data engineering consultancy here in Barcelona, and I was delighted with the results - so I’m ready to release it more widely.
It took many intense weeks of work preparing everything, and by the end I had:
180 slides
45 printed workbook pages
Bonus resources
~8 hours of content including 12 exercises and case studies
7 days of doing absolutely nothing in order to recover afterwards 😆 (with apologies again to my friends for bailing on our climbing trip in Sardinia…)
About the course
The course consists of two modules:
1️⃣ Opportunity Discovery is about confidently identifying and evaluating potential opportunities for data, analytics, and AI in a business.
2️⃣ Opportunity Valuation is about quantifying the ROI and commercial value of data work - historic or upcoming.
Who is the course aimed at?
I wrote the course with three sorts of folks in mind:
Data & AI Product Managers eager to maximise their impact and credibly demonstrate their products' value contribution
Data Science, Analytics, and BI Managers tired of always reacting to business requests, and instead want to focus on proactive, impactful work
Consultants and freelancers looking to sell more projects while increasing the impact they have for their clients
“I'm looking to transition to data product management. Is this course for me?”
This course isn't aimed at folks looking to transition to DPM. Our focus will be much more narrow than all the different skills & competencies a DPM requires.
That said, if you are currently in a technical management role (eg data science manager, analytics manager), this course will give you a solid foundation towards transitioning to a DPM role.
If you’re interested in a “DPM 101” course, do let me know! I’m slowly working on creating one to launch it sometime in 2025, and I’d love to hear from folks interested in such a course. I’ve created a quick form about it here.
What’s the format of the course?
The course is a live, cohort-based course lasting approx. 8 hours of 2x half day live sessions. It’s very interactive - not just listening to things I have to say about data product work!
How much time is required? I know my target audience is very busy, so I’ve trimmed out all the fluff and packed everything into two intense half days spread over two weeks.
After the main section of the course is over, there will also be a monthly 2-hour call for the next 3 months, giving everyone a chance to regroup, share their progress, and problem-solve together. This part will be much more like group coaching added on top of the course, and I really encourage everyone who’s signed up for the course to also join these sessions (at no extra cost).
Where is it? Last month’s edition was offline (we all met in Barcelona), but the next cohort will be online.
When is it? Jan 13-24, with most of the teaching happening on Monday Jan 13 and Monday Jan 20, at 1pm GMT (that’s 2pm CET, 8am ET, 6:30pm IST). Besides the main teaching segments, I’ll also be offering office hours during the course, and then after the course is over, I’m also planning to have accountability & progress update sessions one, two, and three months later.
Who else is joining? I’ll be screening all applicants to make sure the course is a good fit for them, and vice-versa. Given the interactive nature of the course, I really want to be selective about who takes part.
Is the course any good?
I’d like to think so! I spent the past few months condensing lessons learned from the past 8 years working at the intersection of data science, analytics, consulting, and product management, and even hired an L&D expert to help me create the course.
I’m still working on recording testimonials from cohort 1, but here’s a few stats from the feedback folks submitted upon completion of the course:
Overall score: 8.9/10
100% of participants felt confident applying what they learned in their day-to-day work
90% of participants would definitely recommend the course to a colleague (10% said they would probably recommend it)
I also asked which module was everyone’s favourite: Valuation got 55% of the votes, while Discovery got 45%
I’m interested! How do I sign up?
There’s two ways to take the course:
As an individual, you can apply to join a public cohort (meaning you’ll be learning alongside folks from other companies).
If you’re interested in training exclusively for your team/company, send me a message.
The next public cohort will be in January 2024, and I’m offering a 30% discount for those who sign up before 30 November 😁 (use code NOVEMBER30)
// in other news
Data Product Management in Action podcast: I recently recorded some episodes I’m super excited about, and can’t wait for them to get released. If you’d like to come along as a guest, fill this form!
In-person data product management meetups:
London: Next meetup is on 9th Dec, and you can sign up for future meetups here
Montreal: Sign up for future meetups here
Barcelona: We had a great meetup last week! Sign up for future meetups here
Paris: Next meetup is on 3rd Dec, and you can sign up for future meetups here
Cambridge/Boston: It’s not explicitly branded as a DPM meetup, but seeing the invite list of the Boston low-key data happy hour, it’s not not a DPM meetup 😉
Dublin: Meetup isn’t launched yet, but my colleague Sagar is collecting interest via this form.
[Your city here?]: Hit me up if you’re thinking of starting a DPM meetup - I’d love to help! Arielle and I will be putting together some resources from our experience hosting 15+ DPM meetups over the past couple years to help others do the same 😊