Best Way to Learn Data Analysis
by Mahmut on December 07, 2020
In this article, I am going to talk about data analysis. If you want to learn about data analysis or want to make a career in this field, then keep reading.
What is Data Analysis
Data analysis is the process of gathering, cleaning, analyzing, and mining data, interpreting results and reporting the findings. With data analysis, we find patterns within data and correlations between different data points. And it is through these patterns and correlations those insights are generated, and conclusions are drawn.
Data analysis helps businesses understand their past performance and informs their decision-making for future actions. Using data analysis, businesses can validate a course of action before committing to it. Saving valuable time and resources and also ensuring greater success.
Different Types of Data Analysis
We are going to explore four primary types of data analysis, each with a different goal and place in the data analysis process.
- Descriptive Analytics
Descriptive Analytics helps answer the question about what happened over a given period of time by summarizing past data and presenting the findings to stakeholders. It helps provide essential insights into past events.
For example, tracking past performance based on the organization’s key performance indicators or cash flow analysis.
- Diagnostic Analytics
Diagnostic analysis helps answer the question, why did it happen? It takes the insights from descriptive analytics to dig deeper to find the cause of the outcome.
For example, a sudden change in traffic to a website without an obvious cause or an increase in sales in a region where there has been no change in marketing.
- Predictive Analytics
Predictive analytics helps answer the question, what will happen next ? Historical data and trends are used to predict future outcomes. Some of the areas in which businesses apply predictive analysis are risk assessment and sales forecasts.
It’s important to note that the purpose of predictive analytics is not to say what will happen in the future, it’s objective is to forecast what might happen in the future. All predictions are probabilistic in nature.
- Prescriptive Analytics
Prescriptive analytics helps answer the question, what should be done about it ? By analyzing past decisions and events, likelihood of different outcomes is estimated on the basis of which a course of action is decided.
Self-driving cars are a good example of Prescriptive analytics. They analyze the environment to make decisions regarding speed, changing lanes, which route to take, etc.
Or airlines automatically adjusting ticket prices based on customer demand, gas prices, the weather, or traffic on connecting routes.
Responsibilities of a Data Analyst
While the role of a Data Analyst carries depending on the types of organizations and the extent to which it has adopted data-driven practices, there are some responsibilities that are typical to a Data Analyst role in today’s organizations.
These include :
- Acquiring data primary and secondary data sources
- Creating queries to extract required data from databases and other data collections systems
- Filtering, cleaning, standardizing, and reorganizing data in preparation for data analysis
- Using statistical tools to interpret data sets
- Using statistical techniques to identify patterns and correlations in data
- Analyzing patterns in complex data sets and interpreting trends
- Preparing reports and charts that effectively communicate trends and patterns
- Creating appropriate documentation to define and demonstrate the steps of the data analysis process
Skills of a Data Analyst
Let’s look at some of the skills that are valuable for a Data Analyst. The data analysis process requires a combination of technical, functional, and soft skills.
- Let’s look at some of the skills that you need in your role as a Data Analyst. These include:
- Acquiring data primary and secondary data sources.
- Proficiency in statistical analysis and visualization tools and softwares such as Oracle Visual Analyzer, Microsoft Power BI, SAS, and Tableau.
- Proficiency in at least one of the programming languages such as R, Python, and in some cases C++, Java, and MATLAB.
- Good knowledge of SQL, and ability to work with data in relational and NoSQL databases.
- The ability to access and extract data from data repositories such as Data Marts, Data Warehouses, Data Lakes, and Data Pipelines.
- Familiarity with Big data Processing tools such as Hadoop, Hive, and Spark.
- Now we’ll look at some of the functional skills that you require for the role of Data Analyst. These include :
- Proficiency in Statistics to help you analyze your data, validate your analysis, and identify fallacies and logical errors.
- Analytical skills that help you research and interpret data, theorize, and make forecasts.
- Problem-solving skills , because ultimately, the end-goal of all data analysis is to solve problems.
- Probing skills that are essential for the discovery process, that is, for understanding a problem from the perspective of varied stakeholders and users because the data analysis process really begins with a clear articulation of the problem statement and desired outcome.
- Data Visualization skills that help you decide on the techniques and tools that present your findings effectively based on your audience, type of data, context, and end-goal of your analysis.
- Project Management skills to manage the process, people, dependencies, and timelines of the initiative.
- That brings us to your soft skills as a Data Analyst. Data Analysis is both a science and an art. You can ace the technical and functional expertise, but one of the key differentiators for your success is going to be your soft skills. This includes your ability to :
- work collaboratively with business and cross-functional teams
- communicate effectively to report and present your findings
- tell a compelling convincing story
- gather support and buy-in for your work
- Above all, being curious, is at the heart of data analysis.
Conclusion
If you want to learn Data Analytics, you can find lots of sources ( books, courses ) on the internet. The best way to learn something is to learn by doing it. So if you really want to learn it, then build something and learn by doing it.
Thank you for the information 🙌
You are welcome