#98 How to Nail Your Data Mesh Vendor Assessment: A Journey Story - Interview w/ Jen Tedrow

https://www.patreon.com/datameshradio (Data Mesh Radio Patreon) - get access to interviews well before they are released Episode list and links to all available episode transcripts (most interviews from #32 on) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZmCIinVgIm0xjIVFpL9jMtCiOlBQ7LbvLmtmb0FKcQc/edit?usp=sharing (here) Provided as a free resource by DataStax https://www.datastax.com/products/datastax-astra?utm_source=DataMeshRadio (AstraDB) Transcript for this episode (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1P3b8399IKJvBJhNxp0Tep_DtG5hu3rtLY1fFMoMHEeU/edit?usp=sharing (link)) provided by Starburst. See their Data Mesh Summit recordings https://www.starburst.io/learn/events-webinars/datanova-on-demand/?datameshradio (here) and their great data mesh resource center https://www.starburst.io/info/distributed-data-mesh-resource-center/?datameshradio (here) In this episode, Scott interviewed Jen Tedrow, a Product Management Consultant at Pathfinder Product Labs who is currently working with a large client on a data mesh implementation. She was only representing her own perspective in this episode. Some key takeaways/thoughts from Jen's point of view from the conversation: A data mesh vendor assessment is likely to be different than almost any other vendor assessment you've done before, especially if you aren't evolving something existing. There is so much more to cover and the overall platform needs to meet your needs, integrate with how you handle data on the application side including integrations, comply with your governance standards, fit within budget, etc. That's a lot of needles to thread. Spend considerably more time doing the discovery process in your data mesh vendor assessment than you would for a normal vendor assessment. There are a lot of potentially hidden needs / wants and it is far better to surface them early. By digging deep into stakeholders' desired outcomes, you can understand what you need to deliver but also, you can get insight into driving buy-in. Address the challenges preventing them from