The following page may contain information related to upcoming products, features and functionality. It is important to note that the information presented is for informational purposes only, so please do not rely on the information for purchasing or planning purposes. Just like with all projects, the items mentioned on the page are subject to change or delay, and the development, release, and timing of any products, features or functionality remain at the sole discretion of GitLab Inc.
The Product Data Insights team (formerly known as "Product Analysis") was created in October 2020 to provide dedicated, specialized analytics resources for the GitLab Product division and to support product data-related analysis. The team consists of product analysts, and reports to the Senior Director, Product Monetization & Operations. The team's primary customers are Product Managers across all sections, stages, and groups.
In addition to working with the Product organization, Product Data Insights is part of the Research & Development (R&D) Data Fusion Team, enabling collaboration between the product analysts and analytics engineers on the central Data team. Product Data Insights is also a member of the Functional Analytics Center of Excellence (FACE), a group of functional analytics teams across GitLab.
Simply put, the Product Data Insights team is charged with supporting product-related data needs across GitLab. While the scope is quite broad, the team is organized to maximize support of the Product division, while protecting time for cross-functional initiatives. The Product Data Insights team delivers actionable insights that help the Product division make responsible, data-driven decisions in feature development, prioritization, and improving the user experience. Part of Product Data Insights' role is also to enable greater self-service of product-related data and follow GitLab's handbook-first approach to build a strong remote culture.
You can read about the Product Data Insights team's issue intake, prioritization, and team processes on their handbook page.
To maximize the team's ability to support a large product organization, Product Data Insights is structured so that a single analyst supports a section (or sections). This gives analysts the opportunity to build subject matter expertise in an area of the product and the data associated with it. In addition, it provides both analysts and PMs with a consistent counterpart for their data-related needs. The analyst is intended to be an embedded member of the Product team to encourage closer collaboration and increase the impact of analysis on the product.
As a functional analytics team, Product Data Insights is reliant on other teams within the Data Program to provide high-quality, easily-accessible data. As such, the team collaborates closely with the central Data team and Analytics Instrumentation group. Here is a quick summary of the responsibilities of each of these 3 teams:
| Team Name | DRI | Goal | Example Tasks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Product Data Insights | Carolyn Braza: Senior Manager, Product Data Insights | Perform analysis to unlock product insights and champion data-driven product decisions | Perform ad hoc product analysis; create and maintain standardized Product metric dashboards; consult on data collection, instrumentation, and modeling |
| Analytics Instrumentation | Sam Kerr: Group Manager, Product Analytics | Define and improve capabilities of product data set | Build reliable and scalable tooling for product data instrumentation and collection; ensure our product data collection adheres to our commitment to user privacy; empower team members to create new instrumentation, charts, and dashboards in a self-service fashion |
| Data Team | Israel Weeks: Senior Manager, Data | Build and maintain product data models and infrastructure to support data analysis | Create repeatable and reliable product data sets, models, related data pipelines/processes; adhere to Trusted Data standards |