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Struggling with data trust issues, dashboard drama, or constant pipeline firefighting? In this deep‑dive interview, Lior Barak shows you how to shift from a reactive “fix‑it” culture to a mindful, impact‑driven practice rooted in Zen/Wabi‑Sabi principles. You’ll learn: Why 97 % of CEOs say they use data, but only 24 % call themselves data‑driven The traffic‑light dashboard pattern (green / yellow / red) that instantly tells execs whether numbers are safe to use A practical rule for balancing maintenance, rollout, and innovation—and avoiding team burnout How to quantify ROI on data products, kill failing legacy systems, and handle ad‑hoc exec requests without derailing roadmaps Turning “imperfect” data into business value with mindful communication, root‑cause logs, and automated incident review loops

🕒 TIMECODES 00:00 Community and mindful data strategy 04:06 Career journey and product management insights 08:03 Wabi-sabi data and the trust crisis 11:47 AI, data imperfection, and trust challenges 20:05 Trust crisis examples and root cause analysis 25:06 Regaining trust through mindful data management 30:47 Traffic light system and effective communication 37:41 Communication gaps and team workload balance 39:58 Maintenance stress and embracing Zen mindset 49:29 Accepting imperfection and measuring impact 56:19 Legacy systems and managing executive requests 01:00:23 Role guidance and closing reflections

🔗 Connect with Lior LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/liorbarak Website - https://cookingdata.substack.com/ Cooking Data newsletter: https://cookingdata.substack.com/ Product product lifecycle manager: https://app--data-product-lifecycle-manager-c81b10bb.base44.app/

🔗 Connect with DataTalks.Club Join the community - https://datatalks.club/slack.html Subscribe to our Google calendar to have all our events in your calendar - https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0/r?cid=ZjhxaWRqbnEwamhzY3A4ODA5azFlZ2hzNjBAZ3JvdXAuY2FsZW5kYXIuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbQ Check other upcoming events - https://lu.ma/dtc-events GitHub: https://github.com/DataTalksClub LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/datatalks-club/ Twitter - https://x.com/DataTalksClub Website - https://datatalks.club/

🔗 Connect with Alexey Twitter - https://x.com/Al_Grigor Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/agrigorev/

​Using Zen Principles to Bridge Technical Excellence and Strategic Outcomes - Lior Barak

​Despite 97% of organizations investing in data, only 24% of executives feel truly data-driven. Too often, data teams build impressive pipelines and dashboards that never connect back to business results. ​In this podcast episode, Lior Barak, Data Zen Master and author of Data Is Like Hummus, shares how ancient Zen principles, paired with modern data strategy frameworks, can help teams close the gap between technical effort and business impact.

​What we plan to cover:

• ​The Data Strategy Triangle: How to balance maintenance, innovation, and rollout, and align your work with long-term organizational goals.
• ​Executive KPIs that Matter: The two metrics every data team should track to tie technical output to revenue growth, cost reduction, or retention.
• ​Wabi-Sabi for Data Products: How embracing imperfection and transparency builds trust faster than chasing unattainable “perfect” data.
• ​The Data Team Stress Index: A tool to prioritize work, anticipate burnout, and make strategic decisions about tooling and staffing as your team grows.

​About the speaker:

​Lior Barak is an independent data strategy consultant and former hands-on practitioner. He’s helped organizations in tech, finance, and healthcare evolve from reactive firefighting to sustainable, high-impact data practices.

​He’s also the creator of:

• ​The Data Ecosystem Vision Board: a visual planning tool for aligning data efforts across teams
• ​The Data Product Lifecycle Manager: a framework for tracking ROI across a data product’s entire lifespan

​ Lior also writes Cooking Data, a newsletter that pairs mindful data strategy with nourishing, practical advice. As he says: “Data is like hummus: it should be simple and nourishing.”

Join our slack: https://datatalks.club/slack.html​

Summary In this episode of the Data Engineering Podcast Lior Barak shares his insights on developing a three-year strategic vision for data management. He discusses the importance of having a strategic plan for data, highlighting the need for data teams to focus on impact rather than just enablement. He introduces the concept of a "data vision board" and explains how it can help organizations outline their strategic vision by considering three key forces: regulation, stakeholders, and organizational goals. Lior emphasizes the importance of balancing short-term pressures with long-term strategic goals, quantifying the cost of data issues to prioritize effectively, and maintaining the strategic vision as a living document through regular reviews. He encourages data teams to shift from being enablers to impact creators and provides practical advice on implementing a data vision board, setting clear KPIs, and embracing a product mindset to create tangible business impacts through strategic data management.

Announcements Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data managementIt’s 2024, why are we still doing data migrations by hand? Teams spend months—sometimes years—manually converting queries and validating data, burning resources and crushing morale. Datafold's AI-powered Migration Agent brings migrations into the modern era. Their unique combination of AI code translation and automated data validation has helped companies complete migrations up to 10 times faster than manual approaches. And they're so confident in their solution, they'll actually guarantee your timeline in writing. Ready to turn your year-long migration into weeks? Visit dataengineeringpodcast.com/datafold today to learn how Datafold can automate your migration and ensure source to target parity. Your host is Tobias Macey and today I'm interviewing Lior Barak about how to develop your three year strategic vision for dataInterview IntroductionHow did you get involved in the area of data management?Can you start by giving an outline of the types of problems that occur as a result of not developing a strategic plan for an organization's data systems?What is the format that you recommend for capturing that strategic vision?What are the types of decisions and details that you believe should be included in a vision statement?Why is a 3 year horizon beneficial? What does that scale of time encourage/discourage in the debate and decision-making process?Who are the personas that should be included in the process of developing this strategy document?Can you walk us through the steps and processes involved in developing the data vision board for an organization?What are the time-frames or milestones that should lead to revisiting and revising the strategic objectives?What are the most interesting, innovative, or unexpected ways that you have seen a data vision strategy used?What are the most interesting, unexpected, or challenging lessons that you have learned while working on data strategy development?When is a data vision board the wrong choice?What are some additional resources or practices that you recommend teams invest in as a supplement to this strategic vision exercise?Contact Info LinkedInSubstackParting Question From your perspective, what is the biggest gap in the tooling or technology for data management today?Closing Announcements Thank you for listening! Don't forget to check out our other shows. Podcast.init covers the Python language, its community, and the innovative ways it is being used. The AI Engineering Podcast is your guide to the fast-moving world of building AI systems.Visit the site to subscribe to the show, sign up for the mailing list, and read the show notes.If you've learned something or tried out a project from the show then tell us about it! Email [email protected] with your story.Links Vision Board OverviewEpisode 397: Defining A Strategy For Your Data ProductsMinto Pyramid PrincipleKPI == Key Performance IndicatorOKR == Objectives and Key ResultsPhil Jackson: Eleven Rings (affiliate link)The intro and outro music is from The Hug by The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA

We talked about:

DataTalks.Club intro Lior’s background Who is a data strategist? Improving communication between business and tech Building trust Putting data and business people together Dealing with pushbacks Building things in the lean way (and growing tomatoes) Starting with ugly code Convincing others to take our code MVP vs development and Hummus Talking to people who can’t code Break down the silos Hummus Hummus places in Berlin Lior’s book: Data is Like a Plate of Hummus Data chaos

Links:

Book: https://www.amazon.com/-/en/Sarah-Mayor/dp/B086L277LZ (can be found on any amazon store) Company: https://www.taleaboutdata.com/ Podcast: https://podcast.whatthedatapodcast.com/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liorbarak/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/liorb

Hummus places in Berlin:

Azzam: https://goo.gl/maps/uCkb3ATc5CVKapDa6 Akkawy: https://g.page/akkawy The Eatery Berlin: https://g.page/theeateryberlin

Join DataTalks.Club: https://datatalks.club/slack.html