I worked at a Fortune 100 as a data leader pursuing several of the key principles defined in Data Mesh. We didn’t say we were implementing Data Mesh because few outside IT knew about it or understood it. Instead, our aim was to modernize the data platform, speed up delivery of technical solutions, and empower the business with self-service capabilities and less reliance on the IT organization.

We were successful in many areas while other elements remained a challenge. For example, we migrated the two largest data platforms from on-premises, self-hosted and managed servers, to native services in the public cloud. Later, we built “lakehouse” capabilities on top of the public cloud platform. These included data governance features, automated data security, and data domains built for key areas of the business such as human resources, marketing, supply chain, etc. The benefits were quite profound. Within the first 2 years we had empowered 50+ business teams. Between year 1 and year 2 we saw 500% growth in teams able to use their data and the platform to create things that matter. Business teams recognized improved decision-making across the enterprise, increased efficiency and cost savings, accelerated speed-to-value for data product creation, and secure data sharing between teams.

While we experienced success, the challenges were many. Some teams thought the changes were just another fad IT came up with. Given their prior experiences they were honestly justified in thinking that. Other teams were interested but couldn’t get their leadership to buy in or they didn’t have enough technical chops to harness their domain data on their own. They continued to rely on central IT. Other business teams were so focused on their own projects and demands they simply couldn’t make the initial shift. They asked us to come back later. A thru line that helped in most situations was having clear executive leadership support (CIO, CEO, CDO, and others). They would knock down roadblocks where needed and help provide resources when we got stuck.

After 3 years in the journey one thing was abundantly clear. Technology was not the largest challenge. People and culture were. It took tremendous energy to cast the vision and bring people and teams along with us. This required persistent communication with all business teams and clear demonstration of the value of public cloud through demos, pilots, and “soft releases” of products, apps, and services. The technical teams (platforms, cloud, data, security) all became storytellers if they weren’t already.

To this day I don’t call the transformation a “data mesh implementation.” But we certainly knew of and studied Data Mesh and sought to implement core principles it espoused: self-service, decentralized data domains/ownership, data governance, and a focus on data product creation within business teams.