I attended Jamie Champagne‘s session entitled “Data-informed? Data-driven? Just help me use my data!” at the Building Business Capability conference. I have worked on several Business Intelligence projects in my career, and data is at the heart of everything we do as technologists. So, what do you do if you’re not a Data Scientist and you need help? Jamie gave us many tips on what questions to ask, how to identify and get data, and how to use it.
Here are my key takeaways from Jamie’s session:
- Start with the question: “why?”
- Figure out what your goal is
- Break things down by who, what, why, how, where, when, which, and how much (think the 5 Whys or Functional Decomposition techniques)
- Use the right types of questions for the right types of data:
| Time/Question Type | WHAT | WHY |
| PAST | Descriptive What happened? | Diagnostic Why did it happen? |
| PAST/FUTURE | Predictive What is likely to happen based on past trends? | |
| FUTURE | Prescriptive What should happen if we take a certain path? What is the best outcome given the uncertainty? |
- Go in with the end in mind (Stephen Covey, anyone?)
- Getting the data. Ask:
- What data do I have access to?
- What data do I NEED access to?
- What are alternative sources of data?
- What are substitute sources of data?
- Who can I ask for help with my data?
- Ask for data using the following format:
- I want [WHAT]
- Because [WHY]
- So I need [DATA _____] – let the expert fill in the blank
- Ask for what’s important
- Create an action statement for getting data using this format:
- As our goal is to _____, we should ____.
- Put people into your visuals – give users something to connect with visually
- When representing data, show one thing at a time
- Tell stories with your data
- Use data to drive action
- Know who owns and who manages the data
- Pay now, or pay 10x more later
Final Thoughts
These were the high points for me. Data can be complex and intimidating, but it can also be incredibly powerful when used correctly. And, you don’t have to be a Data Scientist to use your data – you just need to know what questions to ask to get it.
Do you have any other tips for getting or using data? If so, let me know in the comments below!