While creating data visualizations for a slideshow, a data analyst considers, “What wouldhelp a stakeholder understand this data better?” The analyst is in the analyze step of thedata analysis process. Show
Get answer to your question and much more 3.Question 3A garden center wants to attract more customers. A data analyst in the marketingdepartment suggests advertising in popular landscaping magazines. This is an exampleof what practice?1 point Get answer to your question and much more Collecting customer information3f a cooking supply store wants to attract more customers, where can they advertise tobetter reach their target audience? Select all that apply. Get answer to your question and much more It took me 3 months to complete my first analytics project. If I would have worked on a similar project 6 months into the job, I would have completed it with in a month. Today, I can complete the same project in less than a week. So what has changed during this time?
While the last two points improve only with time, structured thinking can improve quickly through simple training and disciplined approach towards analysis. But before we go forward, let me bring out the benefits from structured thinking through following graph: Here is how to read this graph:
As you can see, structured thinking is a a big differentiator between a good analyst and bad analyst. Not only this, you can not become a good analytics manager until you can put structure to complex and ambiguous problems. Hence, this post is aimed to help you progress on path of structured thinking. What is structured thinking? Structured thinking is a process of putting a framework to an unstructured problem. Having a structure not only helps an analyst understand the problem at a macro level, it also helps by identifying areas which require deeper understanding. Why is it important and how can it help? Without structure, an analyst is like a tourist with out a map. He might understand where he wants to go (or what he wants to solve), but he doesn’t know how to get there. He would not be able to judge which tools and vehicles he would need to reach the desired place. How many times have you come across a situation when the entire work had to be re-done because a particular segment was not excluded from data? Or a segment was not included? Or just when you were about to finish the analysis, you come across a factor you did not think off before? All these are results of poor structured thinking. Following are some results of poor structured thinking:
So how to enhance structured thinking? Following are some of the best practices which I have learned over time. These practices have helped me and a lot of other people immensely to structure our thoughts and making sure we stay on track during our projects:
Once you create this document, make sure you circulate it to all stakeholders and take their thought at this stage only. If their is any confusion or contradiction to the scope, sort it out now! There is hardly any point in going further, until you define the scope clearly.
The beauty of this practice is that you can layout any problem by spending an hour on it. If you do this right, solving the problem would then be a simple walk through. If you don’t, there is a big risk that you might focus on only internal factors (that too only from a specific area).
So, next time when you come across a problem to solve, don’t dive into the data. Put a structure around it, make sure you cover all the aspects, understand what is the most important factor, layout possible hypothesis and data requirements and then solve the problem. You will be surprised to see the reduction in time, if you follow these steps religiously. As usual, if you know of any other practice, which has helped you think more structurally, do let me know. If you like what you just read & want to continue your analytics learning, you can subscribe to our emails or like our facebook pageWhat does structured thinking involve?Structured thinking is the process of creating a structured framework to solve an unstructured problem. As a problem-solving methodology, structured thinking involves dividing a large problem into smaller ones in order to solve the big problem faster and more efficiently.
What are the key elements of structure thinking?Structured thinking is the process of recognizing the current problem or situation, organizing available information, revealing gaps and opportunities, and identifying the options.
How do you think in a structured way?Structured thinking helps you not just clarify your thinking, but distil higher order insights from your data.. Start small, aim big.. Tackle the techniques from the top down.. Use one-pagers early to boost productivity.. Avoid getting sloppy with your logic.. Which of the following are examples of operators used in formulas Select all that apply?These are called _. Operators are symbols used in formulas, including + (addition), – (subtraction), * (multiplication), and / (division).
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