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Transcript for this episode (link) provided by Starburst. You can download their Data Products for Dummies e-book (info-gated) here and their Data Mesh for Dummies e-book (info gated) here.

Alyona's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alyonagalyeva/

In this episode, Scott interviewed Alyona Galyeva, Principal Data Engineer at Thoughtworks. To be clear, she was only representing her own views on the episode.

Some key takeaways/thoughts from Alyona's point of view:

1. ?Controversial? People keep coming up with simple phrasing and a few sentences about where to focus in data mesh. But if you're headed in the right direction, data mesh will be hard, it's a big change. You might want things to be simple but simplistic answers aren't really going to lead to lasting, high-value change to the way your org does data. Be prepared to put in the effort to make mesh a success at your organization, not a few magic answers.
2. !Controversial! Stop focusing so much on the data work as the point. It's a way to derive and deliver value but the data work isn't the value itself.
3. Relatedly, ask what are the key decisions people need to make and what is currently preventing them from making those decisions. Those are likely to be your best use cases.
4. When it comes to Zhamak's data mesh book, it needs to be used as a source of inspiration instead of trying to use it as a manual. Large concepts like data mesh cannot be copy/paste, they must be adapted to your organization.
5. It's really important to understand your internal data flows. Many people inside organizations - especially the data people - think they know the way data flows across the organization, especially for key use cases. But when you dig in, they don't. Those are some key places to deeply investigate first to add value.
6. On centralization versus decentralization, it's better to think of each decision as a slider rather than one or the other. You need to find your balances and also it's okay to take your time as you shift more towards decentralization for many aspects. Change management is best done incrementally.
7. ?Controversial? A major misunderstanding of data mesh that some long-time data people have is that it is just sticking a better self-serve consumption...