Advancing the Analytics-Driven Organization - At Your Desk, Online

ABOUT THIS COURSE

This four-day course will prepare functional managers and analytic practitioners to finally make sense of data analytics and take control of the analytic process. “Advancing the Analytics-Driven Organization” develops core skills for data analytics and lays the foundation for data-intensive analytic projects that deliver insight, clarity, confidence and actionable decision support.

Attendees will learn the four major types of problems encountered in commercial and public sector applications, and walk through a structured development process to grasp key issues they will face for each problem type. Unlike any other analytic or statistical training, this course maintains a decision strategy focus supported by work-along exercises on multiple data sets.

The exercises allow attendees to experience and organize the natural messiness of data analytics while reinforcing the skills to effectively drive their own projects. Participants return with a rich set of course notes, analytic process guides, workshop session files and follow-on resources.

PREREQUISITES

The density of material establishes an aggressive pace in the presentation of content. Statistical background is helpful, but not required.  Read the Series Overview to understand this event’s place and function within the full course series progression.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

This course 1) builds core capabilities for those who are new to data analytics; 2) provides a more functional, streamlined and strategic mindset for those with classical statistical training; and 3) serves as a structured platform for those wishing to proceed into more advanced analytics projects with greater confidence. “Advancing the Analytics-Driven Organization” is suited for the following roles:

• Functional Managers – who desire a practical appreciation of core analytic methods in a fast-paced, impact-focused course in order to interact more effectively with analysts and IT staff on departmental data analysis projects, regardless of their prior statistical background.
• Organizational Analysts – who need to transform their quantitative capabilities into a purposeful approach to impactful decision analytics by letting go of ad hoc statistical techniques and focusing specifically on a framework of core analytic strategies most appropriate for tackling common goal-driven problems.
• Experienced Statisticians – who may be statistical wizards at the quantitative level, but realize they will be far more valuable to the organization upon learning how to adapt their classical training into more of a goal-driven mindset for streamlined, agile and targeted data analytics that translate into measurable impact for leadership.
• IT Specialists – who wish to gain a better appreciation of the overall analytic process in order to more effectively prepare resources for data analysis and integrate resulting decision models within the infrastructure of today’s sophisticated data storage and access environments.
• Business Intelligence Team Members – who realize the need to take a step back and reinforce their essential core analytic capabilities in order to gain solid traction when proceeding into more advanced analytics fields such as data mining, predictive modeling, machine learning, knowledge discovery, unstructured text analysis, and data-driven decision support.

KEY SKILLS YOU’LL TAKE AWAY IMMEDIATELY

• Focus on core analytic issues, strategies, methods and techniques most appropriate for organizational decision making
• Understand in plain English what the algorithms do, and how true descriptive analytics relate to decision support
• Unify project teams – from statisticians to leadership – in order to establish a common strategy, framework and process for greater coordination, efficiency, clarity and impact
  • For analysts to obtain clear direction on analytic goals and delivery requirements
  • For leadership to better understand and trust what the analyst delivers

Leave ad hoc, esoteric and academic statistical exercises behind in lieu of targeted, insightful and understandable analytic outcomes that drive decision models with residual benefit View content through an organized series of live work-along exercises in order to directly experience strategic issues as well as how to tactically implement at the project-level Leave with the resources, contacts and actionable plans to substantially increase analytic capabilities while minimizing dead ends

THE ORGANIZATIONAL CHALLENGE FOR ANALYTICS

The ability to make effective and timely decisions driven by valuable information hidden within a rapidly increasing mass of data is critical to the success of modern organizations and managers. The advancement of analytic and reporting options, along with the proliferation of big data delivery platforms and analytic software suites create an environment where functional managers must rely heavily upon their analysts and IT staff for critical insight.

It is typically not the responsibility of analysts and IT specialists to focus on strategic-level decision processes. Yet, analytics will fall short of its potential without adequate context, sound problem definition and results translation. At the same time, statisticians and IT professionals are often misguided by managers who lack core analytic skills to effectively communicate their needs, or fully understand the results.

The gap between these roles leaves the manager to subjectively interpret results from analytical models that emphasize quantitative sophistication and artificial metrics instead of objective, data-driven solutions. And in business, the product of data analysis is not the analysis. The real products of the analysis are the insights gained and the impact measured.

The intent of this course is to bridge the critical translation gap between team members that cause the vast majority of analytic projects to fall short of their potential. Managers who attend this class will establish a stronger appreciation of core analytic methods and process to better interpret, evaluate and trust what the analyst delivers. Statisticians, IT professionals and analysts will learn how to approach data analysis in a structured and purposeful way that translates well for leadership, and directly impacts business performance.

UPON COMPLETION, YOU WILL BE ABLE TO

• Discover, monitor and clearly report the primary analytic contributors that affect strategic decision processes and their impact on performance metrics that are important to leadership
• Classify the four major types of analysis projects and match the best suited core analytic methods
• Develop a six-phase methodology for evaluating and validating business insights
• Structure and organize a wide range of data analysis topics from a project-oriented, decision-process perspective
• Identify critical characteristics of available data fields and leverage treatments to significantly enhance their contribution to the decision making process
• Maneuver a structured process to evaluate the effectiveness of individual attributes and their value to enhancing a predefined objective
• Establish a solid foundation for more advanced analytic practices such as predictive modeling and data mining

WHAT YOU SHOULD BRING

Participants are welcome but not required to bring laptop computers. Live application Illustrations will be conveyed in the form of work-along sessions. Attendees may either watch the instructor work through the exercises, or take their own approach in parallel. Consider whether you learn better by watching or doing. Completed worksheets will be given to all attendees at the end of the class. All other course materials will be available at the training site.