Data Analyst Foundations

Question 1

Stages of Data Analysis (Google)

Answer 1

1. Ask: business challenge, objective, or question
2. Prepare: data generation, collection, storage, and data management
3. Process: data cleaning and data integrity
4. Analyze: data exploration, visualization, and analysis
5. Share: communicating and interpreting results
6. Act: putting insights to work to solve the problem
   *7 Review: Restart the process to see if the changes made in the Act phase have produced results.

Question 2

Ask - what is done during this stage?

Answer 2

Propose a business challenge, question, or objective to be solved.
Ask questions of stakeholders to determine the scope and clarify the challenge/question.

Question 3

Prepare - what is done during this stage?

Answer 3

Data Identification - Determine what data needs to be collected.
Generate or gather the data, collect, store and manage the data.
Verify data is accurate and useful for answering the questions.

Question 4

Process - what is done during this stage?

Answer 4

Clean the data - Remove duplicates, fix null/blank values, change data types.
Organize the data - sort or group data to add context.

Question 5

Analyze - what is done during this stage?

Answer 5

Explore the data - Add calculations or averages if needed.
Review the data to examine trends and patterns and draw conclusions.

Question 6

Share - what is done during this stage?

Answer 6

Visualize the data to highlight the trends & patterns and to tell a story to answer the questions posed.
Present the findings to the decision-makers/stakeholders.

Question 7

Act - what is done during this stage?

Answer 7

Use the conclusions & insights gained to solve the problem. Implement new business strategy, make changes to a product, or any other action to solve the problem posed in the Act stage.

Question 8

*Review - what is done during this stage?

Answer 8

(not in Google’s list)
After changes from the Act phase have been implemented, restart at the Prepare phase. Gather new data and compare to previous to see if the changes have produced the desired results.

Question 9

Vocab - Analytical Skills

Answer 9

Qualities & characteristics associated with using facts to solve problems.

Question 10

Vocab - Analytical Thinking

Answer 10

The process of identifying and defining a problem, then solving it using data in an organized step-by-step manner.

Question 11

Vocab - Context

Answer 11

The condition in which something exists or happens.

Question 12

Vocab - Data

Answer 12

A collection of facts.

Question 13

Vocab - Data Analysis

Answer 13

The collection, transformation, and organization of data in order to draw conclusions, make predictions, and drive informed decision-making.

(not the same as Data Analytics which is the science of data)

Question 14

Vocab - Data Analyst

Answer 14

Someone who collects, transforms, and organizes data in order to draw conclusions, make predictions, and drive informed decision-making.

Question 15

Vocab - Data Analytics

Answer 15

The science of data

(not the same as Data Analysis which is the process)

(not the same as Data Science which is the field of study)

Question 16

Vocab - Data Design

Answer 16

How information is organized or structured.

Question 17

Vocab - Data-Driven Decision Making

Answer 17

Using facts to guide business strategy.

Question 18

Vocab - Data Ecosystem

Answer 18

The various elements that interact with one another in order to product, manage, store, organize, or share data.

Question 19

Vocab - Data Science

Answer 19

A field of study that uses raw data to create new ways of modeling and understanding the unknown.

Not the same as Data Analytics which is the science of data

Question 20

Vocab - Data Strategy

Answer 20

The management of the people, processes, and tools used in data analysis.

Question 21

Vocab - Data Visualization

Answer 21

The graphical representation of data.

Question 22

Vocab - Dataset

Answer 22

A collection of data that can be manipulated or analyzed as one unit.

Question 23

What is Gap Analysis?

Answer 23

A method of examining and evaluating the current state of a process as compared to the desired/ideal state to identify where gaps occur and how to bridge them for future improvement.

Question 24

What is a Root Cause?

Answer 24

The base reason why a problem occurs. Keep asking Why to identify the root cause.

Question 25

What is a Technical Mindset?

Answer 25

The ability to break things down into smaller steps and work with them in a logical way.