Data Analysis in Industry

Session 1

Session Outline

The Data Lifecycle
The Data Analytics Lifecycle
Identifying Stakeholders
Dealing with Stakeholders
Methods of Communication
Project Briefs
Recap

Learning Objectives

Describe the data analytics lifecycle and set out details, activities and roles at each stage in a real-world example
Design effective project briefs which communicate expectations to stakeholders
Identify business specific rules related to datasets and data characteristics that will influence project design and analysis

The Data Lifecycle

Data LifeCycle

Is the data structured or unstructured?

Is it quantitative or qualitative?

Where has the data come from?

What size is the dataset?

Is it created continuously or in batches?

Data LifeCycle

Where is the data stored?

How many people require access?

What are the access requirements?

What rules relate to the data storage?

Data LifeCycle

How is the data being used?

How often is it being used?

Does anyone external to your organisation have access?

Are there any business rules?

Data LifeCycle

Is the data always needed?

What is the working life of the data?

Can it be made available given prior notice?

Data LifeCycle

Is the data still being used?

Is the data relevant?

Is the data needed?

Data LifeCycle

How can the data be securely and permanently removed?

Activity

In pairs, walk your partner through the data life cycle for a piece of data you have used in your role.

The Data Analytics Lifecycle

What is the context of business problem?

Why does the problem matter?

Who are the stakeholders?

What assumptions have you made about the problem?

What is your proposed solution and issues you have considered?

What data will you require?

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Does the data require cleaning?

How have you summarised the data?

Is there any missing data or outliers?

What are the data structures?

What are the data types?

What features are in your data?

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What aggregates have you calculated?

How have you visualised the data?

What trends have you observed?

Are there any correlations between features?

What insights have you gained from the data?

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What is your solution to the business problem?

Is it a prototype?

Based off your analysis, how have you come to this solution?

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Have you considered other solutions?

How do you know yours is the best one?

How have you optimised your solution?

How have you verified that the project requirements have been met?

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How have you presented your solution to the stakeholders?

What are your recommendations?

What are the next steps or future opportunities gained from this project?

Activity

You work for a recruiting firm and have been asked to produce a model that predicts the salary of a data analyst from a job board website. The problem is that not all jobs advertised list a salary range, so your line manager wants you to find a way of estimating these salaries based off features such as location, job title and keywords in the description.

In groups identify where each of the steps on the following slide would fall into in the data analytics lifecycle.

Ensure location data is consistent	Establish project deadline	Build predictive model
Fine tune model to optimise results	Move model to production	Understand stakeholder expectations
Extract keywords from job descriptions	Remove currency symbols from data	Identify adverts which list salaries
Plot visualisation of average salary per location	Communicate results to stakeholders	Aggregate mean salary per location
Extract location information from job adverts	Interpret results	Decide whether you are predicting continuous salary values or salary bands

Ensure location data is consistent	Establish project deadline	Build predictive model
Fine tune model to optimise results	Move model to production	Understand stakeholder expectations
Extract keywords from job descriptions	Remove currency symbols from data	Identify adverts which list salaries
Plot visualisation of average salary per location	Communicate results to stakeholders	Aggregate mean salary per location
Extract location information from job adverts	Interpret results	Decide whether you are predicting continuous salary values or salary bands

Ensure location data is consistent	Establish project deadline	Build predictive model
Fine tune model to optimise results	Move model to production	Understand stakeholder expectations
Extract keywords from job descriptions	Remove currency symbols from data	Identify adverts which list salaries
Plot visualisation of average salary per location	Communicate results to stakeholders	Aggregate mean salary per location
Extract location information from job adverts	Interpret results	Decide whether you are predicting continuous salary values or salary bands

Ensure location data is consistent	Establish project deadline	Build predictive model
Fine tune model to optimise results	Move model to production	Understand stakeholder expectations
Extract keywords from job descriptions	Remove currency symbols from data	Identify adverts which list salaries
Plot visualisation of average salary per location	Communicate results to stakeholders	Aggregate mean salary per location
Extract location information from job adverts	Interpret results	Decide whether you are predicting continuous salary values or salary bands

Ensure location data is consistent	Establish project deadline	Build predictive model
Fine tune model to optimise results	Move model to production	Understand stakeholder expectations
Extract keywords from job descriptions	Remove currency symbols from data	Identify adverts which list salaries
Plot visualisation of average salary per location	Communicate results to stakeholders	Aggregate mean salary per location
Extract location information from job adverts	Interpret results	Decide whether you are predicting continuous salary values or salary bands

Ensure location data is consistent	Establish project deadline	Build predictive model
Fine tune model to optimise results	Move model to production	Understand stakeholder expectations
Extract keywords from job descriptions	Remove currency symbols from data	Identify adverts which list salaries
Plot visualisation of average salary per location	Communicate results to stakeholders	Aggregate mean salary per location
Extract location information from job adverts	Interpret results	Decide whether you are predicting continuous salary values or salary bands

Ensure location data is consistent	Establish project deadline	Build predictive model
Fine tune model to optimise results	Move model to production	Understand stakeholder expectations
Extract keywords from job descriptions	Remove currency symbols from data	Identify adverts which list salaries
Plot visualisation of average salary per location	Communicate results to stakeholders	Aggregate mean salary per location
Extract location information from job adverts	Interpret results	Decide whether you are predicting continuous salary values or salary bands

Identifying Stakeholders

What is a stakeholder?

Who could be a stakeholder?

Stakeholders are individuals or groups who are involved in your project from whom you require input, or who will be influenced or impacted by the results.


Sponsor	Team	Users	Suppliers
Examples: Directors, Senior Leadership, Heads of Department	Examples: Project Managers, Team Leads, Line Managers, Sales Teams	Examples: Customers, Clients, Business Owner	Examples: Contractors, Consultants, Subject Matter Experts

Almost anyone can be a stakeholder but we can simplify them into four groups

Sponsors: those who issue the project, like those who you report into
Team: those who are on the same level as you and who you have to collaborate with
Users: the clients or customers who will make use of your output. Note a user and a customer may be different- a customer pays for the product whereas a user 'uses' it, for example a company will pay for a service while the employees use it.
Suppliers: those whose input is required for the project to be completed (could be an external data source or subject expert)

For each stakeholder you need to consider how involved they will be with your project and therefore what influence they will have, the next few slides will help structure this process.

1. What motivates them?

2. How can you influence them?

3. What information would they like to receive?

4. How would they like to receive it?

5. What information do we require from them?

6. What dependencies are they responsible for?

Questions to consider in your communications with each stakeholder

Dealing with Stakeholders

Do you have enough information to draft a project brief to share with stakeholders?

Are you accurately capturing the necessary information through effective questioning?

A good question is one that lets you obtain the type, quality and quantity of the information you need

Open ended questions encourage people to reflect and reveal what is important to them

Type	Desired Outcome	Example
Explorative	Expand on new points of view and uncovered areas	Have you thought of...?
Affective	Reveal stakeholder's feelings about something	How do you feel about...?
Reflective	Encourage elaboration	What do you think causes...?
Probing	Invite a deeper examination	Can you describe how...?
Analytical	Find the root of a problem	What are the causes of...?
Clarifying	Help align and avoid misunderstandings	You mean that...?

Other things to consider

What return do they get?

What do they need?

What do you need?

What's their opinion of you?

What is their strategy?

Activity

In groups you will be assigned a business case.

Brainstorm a list of questions you would ask to get more insight into the problem

Think who else might be a stakeholder in the situation

Scenario 1

Yusef owns an online shoe e-commerce website. He isn’t happy with how sales are going, especially the beachwear section of his store. He has contracted you to create an analysis to help him with this issue.

I want you to look at the day-on-day sales to see where this is going wrong. I want moving averages, and a linear regression of the shopping baskets! I spent a lot of money buying 20,000 pairs of flip flops. They need to sell.

Scenario 2

Danielle runs a DJ store selling vinyl records and cassette tapes. Recently, she has found that she is running out of stock of certain albums and songs. Customers are asking for them but all her copies are gone! She’s contracted you to help.

I’ve got a list of the ages of my customers. I want you to explore who the customers are, how old are they? What is their vibe like?

Scenario 3

You are the data analyst at an advertising firm and have just implemented a new strategy to boost the ROI of a client’s advertising campaign, with the sign-off of both the account manager and your line-manager. However, later in the day, you receive an angry email from someone at the client company. It turns out they are temporarily in charge of the campaigns and don’t like your changes, asking you to immediately revert them. It seems they are unaware of how you usually operate.

Communication Plan

To help keep track of stakeholders you should maintain a communication plan to help you:

Determine how often you will be in contact with stakeholders
Decide on your messages (ignore, follow, inform, consult, involve, etc)
Decide on the medium of contact (email, phone call, etc)
Assign a responsible project member

Methods of Communication

Activity

Communication problems lead to delays, misunderstandings, frustration, workplace conflicts and a mismatch in stakeholder expectations.

What are some examples of effective communication methods?
In which context and with what type of audience are those effective?

Two types of Communication

Verbal

No Actions

Non-Verbal

Actions

Communication is not as simple as just talking to someone; to elicit information from someone there is a whole range of methods you should consider. For example, a lot of communication is verbal (speaking) but that also includes emails and memos. What sort of things should you try to keep in mind when communicating verbally? (Grammar, appropriate use of language, tone, saying what you mean, etc). What is often overlooked however is non verbal communication. Humans are generally quite good at picking up body language, even subconsciously, which can create problems if you are not thinking about it. For example, if you are trying to win a client, looking at your phone will not go down very well. What other types of non verbal communication should we be considering when communicating with stakeholders?

Email

Face to Face

One of the more common methods of communication with stakeholders is the humble email, does anyone have any advice from their experience with writing emails to stakeholders? What should you consider? A lot depends on the stakeholder itself, you can be a lot less formal with a peer than a senior manager. If in doubt, it always better to be formal and succinct, giving enough detail so they understand without overloading them. What sort of things should we consider with face to face meeting (whether in person or over Zoom/Teams)? Body language, how we look and speak, being clear and concise and knowing our subject material. When communicating with stakeholders it is important we have a flexible and adaptive style. How you communicate with your manager will be different with someone on your level and again different to someone who is external. What you will be assessed on in your portfolio is your ability to adapt your communication style to different audiences and situations.

A good data analyst will accurately frame a problem to be solved and share it with key stakeholders

Project Briefs

A project brief is the document that sets out the requirements for a piece of analysis

Who

What

When

Why

Who

What

When

Why

Project Sponsors

Those who set the analytical requirements and decides if your work has fulfilled their needs:

What questions do you need to ask them?
What do you need to produce for them?
What format are they expecting?
Do they understand the limitations of their data?

Who

What

When

Why

Metrics, Outputs and Format

What are the key pieces of information you need to agree on?

What will you be delivering?
What tools do you intend to use?
What will the final product look like?
How will you know that you have been successful?

Who

What

When

Why

Deadlines

What is the timeline for completion on your project?

When will your project be completed ?
What will be the check-in dates where you will give updates?
How often do you intend to communicate with stakeholders?

Who

What

When

Why

Context

Why does your project matter?

What is the business problem?
What will happen if the problem is left unchecked?
How will your solution fix this problem?

Does your industry have additional requirements?

Activity

Review these project briefs

What is good or bad and why?
Is there any missing information?
What would you always want to see in a brief?
Who should supply the brief information?
What other questions should you be asking of these briefs?

Domain Context

What are the industry requirements?

How does it fit into the wider business structure?

What will be the commercial impact?

Business Need for Analysis

Data analytics is used in business to help organisations make better business decisions.
Whether it’s market research, product research, positioning, customer reviews, sentiment analysis, or any other issue for which data exists, analysing data will provide insights that organisations need in order to make the right choices.
Data analytics is important for businesses today, because data-driven choices are the only way to be truly confident in business decisions. Some successful businesses may be created on a hunch, but almost all successful business choices are data-based.
When writing your project briefs you will need to be clear on what type of analysis you are going to do, and in your portfolio explain why it is the appropriate choice. The next few slides will cover 4 main types of analytics.

Descriptive Analytics

Diagnostic Analytics

Predictive Analytics

Prescriptive Analytics

Looking at past data to tell what has happened

E.g. KPIs, revenue, sales leads

Descriptive Analytics

Diagnostic Analytics

Predictive Analytics

Prescriptive Analytics

Determining the cause of an observed event

Descriptive Analytics

Diagnostic Analytics

Predictive Analytics

Prescriptive Analytics

Predicting what will happen in the future

Descriptive Analytics

Diagnostic Analytics

Predictive Analytics

Prescriptive Analytics

Creating an action plan based off your analysis

Good Project Briefs:

Are concise and clear

Set time expectations clearly

Explicitly state the intended outputs

State the scope and purpose of the analysis

Are agreed and signed off by all parties

Brief Title	Come up with a project name
Situation	Share a brief description of what you hope to achieve during your project - what is the problem you are trying to solve? (max 400 words)
Relevance	How is the problem relevant to your role? Is the project relevant in the context of your day-to-day work? What impact could this project potentially have on your role/team/organisation? (max 400 words)
Tasks	What is your approach? Have you identified an existing source of data or are you going to create a new one? (max 400 words)
Challenges	What challenges have you identified going into this project? Is it access to data? Data protection? Anonymisation? IT? How do you envisage overcoming them, and what is your backup plan? (max 400 words)

Activity

Draft a project brief for the following stakeholder:

A senior manager at your firm needs to access KPIs quickly, but the current process takes too long. You have been asked to make a dashboard in PowerBI.

Verification

The internal process of evaluating a data project to determine whether the products of a given development phase satisfy the conditions imposed at the start. This includes:

Inspecting
Design Analysis
Specification Analysis

Validation

The external process of evaluating a data project during or at the end of the development process to determine whether it satisfies specific external requirements. This includes:

Evaluating if the product meets the client expectations and requirements

Learning Objectives

Describe the data analytics lifecycle and set out details, activities and roles at each stage in a real-world example
Design effective project briefs which communicate expectations to stakeholders
Identify business specific rules related to datasets and data characteristics that will influence project design and analysis

Assignment
Part 1- Data Analytics Life Cycle
Use a work-related example to identify the stages of the Data Analytics Lifecycle. Describe what happened in each stage and highlight what was your role in the process. In the end, add a summary of the project/analysis including the main findings, what went well and what could have been improved.
Word Count	Max 1500 words
Deadline	3 weeks
Deliverables	Word Document or PowerPoint presentation

Assignment
Part 2- Project Brief
Use a work-related example to create a project brief. This could be related to a project you are about to start or something new. Your brief should contain a business problem, the wider context of the analysis and a plan of action to solve the problem.
Word Count	Max 1500 words
Deadline	4 weeks
Deliverables	Word Document

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