Lema
Setting strong foundations to empower domain teams with self-service data visualization
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introducing the opportunity
Lema, a data visualization studio, was tasked with a mission to accelerate the decentralization of dataviz for a well-established player in a regulated industry. Their approach focused on empowering business analysts through training and speeding up adoption by establishing technical foundations built into Tableau.
I was brought in as a data product manager to complement their efforts by discovering what needed to be built to securely scale the data visualization practice, ensuring domains could take ownership while maintaining consistency at scale.
I was brought in as a data product manager to complement their efforts by discovering what needed to be built to securely scale the data visualization practice, ensuring domains could take ownership while maintaining consistency at scale.
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breaking the problem into manageable pieces
Our approach centered on the discovery of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) focusing on a key use case at the intersection of two domains. We isolated the urgency to tackle three core areas to streamline the self-service analytics for the involved teams :
• Enabling the right users to find the right data (Discovery)
• Understanding and building trust in the dashboards (Observability)
• Scaling consistency-by-design through computed services (Operability)
• Enabling the right users to find the right data (Discovery)
• Understanding and building trust in the dashboards (Observability)
• Scaling consistency-by-design through computed services (Operability)
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Discovery
We wanted to make finding key dashboards easy and straightforward. The most crucial step was meeting users where they are by enabling seamless Tableau authentication when they log into their back office. Once logged in, a self-service tab features popular dashboards within their teams, allowing even users with only browse permissions to explore available resources. A central search feature uses smart ranking to ensure the most-used dashboards appear first, while usage stats showcase what’s trending and valuable.
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observability
When users access a dataviz product, they gain valuable insights into its value and reliability without needing to hunt for documentation. All the essential information is embedded within the dashboard: its name, purpose, and details about the owner team and data product owner for easy support. Each dataviz also includes version numbers, update frequency, and upcoming deprecation dates if relevant, so users know when support might end.
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operability
To enable self-service, we make it easy for business users to ask and answer their own questions. We provide curated datasets for each certified dashboard, removing unnecessary fields and adding helpful descriptions. Users can download these "self-service" datasets, explore them through the "Talk to Data" feature, or create workbooks in their private folders.
For global sharing, local teams need approval from the core team. Data Product Owners and other reviewers subscribe to updates via webhooks to stay informed about new workbooks, which they review and certify for quality and relevance. We took a proactive approach to guarantee quality-by-design by offering ready-to-use Tableau components with embedded computed fields, like certification status.
For global sharing, local teams need approval from the core team. Data Product Owners and other reviewers subscribe to updates via webhooks to stay informed about new workbooks, which they review and certify for quality and relevance. We took a proactive approach to guarantee quality-by-design by offering ready-to-use Tableau components with embedded computed fields, like certification status.
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