Consumers vs Builders

In a data project, the stakeholders can play 2 different roles:

1. Data Builder

2. Data Consumer

It's important to realise that each role is different as the responsibilities and tools that each will use to do their job will be different.

Data Builder

A Data Builder is someone that is building a data product to be then consumed by the Data Consumer. Usually, Data Builders have the Data Engineers / Analytics Engineers / Data Analysts job title but depending on the Data Project, it can be someone else that have the required skills.

The perfect data product is:

• Stable: Numbers / charts shouldn't break without notice

• Self usable: Consumers should be able to discover and use the Data Product by themselves

• Adopted: A good product is a product that is used by its intended audience. This is the tricky part because a lot of factors can explain why a product is not widely adopted, but a product that isn't used is a useless product.

Hence, the Data Builder is in charge of building the proper data consuming experience, for its whole team. In order to build the perfect data product, a special intention should be given to the following points:

• Building the right Models that correctly clean and blend the data to define the basis of all analysis

• Designing the proper Explorations and correctly documenting them so that people can make sense of them

• Testing data and monitoring data pipelines to be alerted on all possible issues in the numbers

In Whaly, the Data Builders will do the majority of their work in the Workbench interface.

Data Consumer

A Data Consumer is someone that have questions and/or need to take a decision and that will use the Data Products built by the Data Builder.

The Consumer is often either a regular teammate that need data to do a proper job on a daily basis (Sales rep, CSM, ...) or an executive that needs to take strategic decisions (CxOs, VPs, etc.).

The Consumer plays an essential part in the Data as he is the main user. Without an engaged, trustful consumer, data is useless.

The consumer needs to build the proper level of knowledge to make the proper use of the Data Products that were built for him.

In Whaly, the Data Consumers will do the majority of their work in the Workspace interface.