Data teams represent an organizational transformation for most companies. What problems do data folks solve? Do they work with engineering? Do they do R&D on the side until they prove their worth by building something truly valuable?

These are embarrassingly common questions for most companies, from small startups to large Fortune 500 corporations. In the absence of good answers, data teams are left at the mercy of a myriad of business requests. No roadmap, no direction. Just SQL.

Luckily, there is a way to turn data service organizations into an integral part of your business, while adding value with every single contribution, by shifting toward becoming a data product team. This implies listening to internal and external customers, and building tools that increase your company's operational efficiency and reduce the need for ad hoc queries.

In this talk, I'll walk through what it would take to achieve this for your organization. If you're a data or engineering leader and have struggled with managing internal work in progress of your data teams, this talk is for you.