From the course: Learning Data Analytics: 1 Foundations

Learning to interpret existing data

From the course: Learning Data Analytics: 1 Foundations

Learning to interpret existing data

- [Instructor] Most companies have reports today that they use for decision making. It could be two weeks old or a month old when they get it, but it is the report that they use. Learning about data from existing reports can help you get ahead of the learning curve of the data. It also teaches you about the business rules you may need to know. Let me back up a little bit and give you some concepts that I think will help you look at reports a little bit differently. It's also important to keep in mind that the way we see the data displayed is not always have the data is stored. Something that most people can relate to is a menu. We can all appreciate a menu at our favorite place. A menu really operates as a report of that restaurant. We use it to make a decision about what they're offering that day, what we want to eat and how much money we want to spend. If you really think about a menu, it has different categories of information like small plates, beverages, main dishes and desserts. These are just simple examples of what we might find on a menu. Let's focus on the main dishes for now. The chef has created the main dishes from recipes that are either standard to that restaurant or created directly by the chef. No matter who creates those recipes, the dishes represent ingredients, measurements of those ingredients and preparation rules. The chef knows that in order to offer that dish, they need the ingredients and the rules to follow. That way they have exactly what they need in the right amounts, mixing them at the right time and cooking them at the correct temperatures. And at the same time, the pastry chef is thinking through exactly what they will need to make that award-winning dessert that just lands in another place on the same menu. The ingredients are different. The requirements are different, but they do end up on the same final display. At some point, the chef will determine it's time for them to shop for the ingredients. And the chef might visit different aisles and different stores to gather the ingredients for the dishes that will be on the menu. There will be time when the chef tastes different ingredients and mixes them together to create another ingredient for the recipe. In data, the menu is the report. The ingredients are the data, and the measurements and prep rules are examples of the business rules. When reviewing a report, ask yourself, what are the data points that are collected together? And what are those data points that you see on the report? Determine if those data points together are following any specific rules like only showing the last 30 days or showing the next seven days. Have you ever been to the grocery store and forgotten your list? It's easy to miss a key ingredient or spend too much on ingredients you don't need. It's no different for the data analyst. Once you have everything documented, you're ready to start shopping for your data. And just like the chef, you may have to shop for your data, except the aisles are tables and databases are spreadsheets. And the different stores are different databases to get everything you need. On every project that I start, I typically analyze the reporting that they're currently using. That way I can see what they're using to make their decisions, determine what categories they're using, what are the data points they're looking at and what are the rules? And then I'm ready to create my data shopping list.

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