# Quickstart for data teams

> For AI agents: a documentation index is available at [/docs/llms.txt](/docs/llms.txt). Append `.md` to any page URL for markdown, or send `Accept: text/markdown`.

This quickstart walks data governance owners, data engineers, and implementation leads through creating a tracking plan, validating incoming event data, and setting up your team's instrumentation workflow in Amplitude. Plan for roughly 15 minutes end to end.

Follow this quickstart if you own data governance, taxonomy, and event quality. If you write the SDK code that sends events into Amplitude, go to [Quickstart for engineers](https://amplitude.com/docs/get-started/quickstart-for-engineers) instead.

**Outcome:** [A tracking plan](https://amplitude.com/docs/data/create-tracking-plan)

Defines every event and property your product sends to Amplitude.

**Outcome:** [Validation rules](https://amplitude.com/docs/data/validate-events)

Flag unexpected or malformed events before they reach your charts.

**Outcome:** [A data catalog](https://amplitude.com/docs/data/amplitude-data-get-started)

Browse and document every event and property flowing into your Amplitude project.

An Amplitude account with access to Amplitude Data. Go to [Create a new account](https://amplitude.com/docs/get-started/create-a-new-account) if you don't have one.

An Admin or Manager role in your organization (required to create and publish tracking plans).

Alignment with your product and engineering teams on what to track. Go to [Plan your implementation](https://amplitude.com/docs/get-started/plan-your-implementation) to work through those decisions first.

> **Note:**
>
> Starting from scratch? Go to [Instrumentation prework](https://amplitude.com/docs/get-started/instrumentation-prework) to build alignment on taxonomy, user identity, and naming conventions before you create your tracking plan.

1. **Build a tracking plan**

   A tracking plan is a single source of truth that defines every event and property your product sends to Amplitude. It gives engineers a spec to implement against, and gives analysts confidence in the data they query.

   Go to [Amplitude Data](https://amplitude.com/docs/data/amplitude-data-get-started) and open the _Tracking Plan_ tab. Create a new plan and [add your events](https://amplitude.com/docs/data/create-tracking-plan). Start with the five to ten actions most critical to your product's success, such as sign-up, activation, and conversion events. For each event, define its required properties and their expected types.

   Publish the plan so it's visible to your engineering and product teams.
2. **Check incoming events**

   After engineering instruments against your plan, use [event validation](https://amplitude.com/docs/data/validate-events) to check that real events match your spec. Amplitude Data flags events with missing required properties, unexpected property types, or names that don't match your plan.

   Open the _Observe_ tab in Amplitude Data to see a live stream of incoming events alongside any validation warnings. Resolve issues by updating the tracking plan, fixing the instrumentation, or both. The resolution workflow keeps a record of what changed and why.
3. **Set your team's workflow**

   A clean tracking plan only stays clean if everyone follows the same process. Go to [Implementation team organization](https://amplitude.com/docs/get-started/implementation-team-organization) for a recommended workflow that covers who owns the tracking plan, how engineers request changes, and how to handle schema evolution over time.

   Define your team's review process before implementation starts, so that new events go through the tracking plan before they reach production.

## Next steps

### [Enforce naming conventions](https://amplitude.com/docs/data/amplitude-data-get-started)

Use Amplitude Data's linting rules to block events that don't follow your taxonomy before they reach production.

### [Connect your data sources](https://amplitude.com/docs/data/amplitude-data-get-started)

Connect third-party sources, CDPs, and warehouses to your Amplitude project.