Develop the data literacy skills you need to be a trusted business analyst, able to extract key business insights from data and to communicate your findings with focused clarity. No programming or difficult mathematics required!
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As more organizations aim to harness the power of data-driven decisions, the demand has soared for data-literate professionals who can dive into and analyze data. In this hands-on course, you will learn foundational skills to robustly analyze business data and become a valued data detective.
Many find the prospect of gaining data literacy skills intimidating as they assume that learning advanced statistics is required—not true!
Data science expert Caitlin Johnson will teach you the fundamentals of robustly analyzing business data using Excel. No fancy Excel functions or complex calculations are required—we promise!
You will master a tool that is as simple as it is powerful: the process behavior chart. The process behavior chart is a visual tool uniquely suited for the data detective that allows you to answer questions such as:
- Given historical business performance, what should we reasonably expect to see in the future?
- We’ve implemented a new business initiative (e.g., an incentive plan). Is the initiative really working?
- Is the business performance of Division A actually superior to the business performance of Division B?
With your newly acquired skills you will be positioned to become not only a data-literate detective but also a trusted advisor providing rigorous, compelling insights into the multitude of KPIs, dashboards, and scorecards so common in today’s organizations.
Want to know the best part? No programming or difficult mathematics are required!
You Will Learn
- Basic data concepts: summaries and visualizations
- Why business data often requires a different style of analysis
- Data analysis fundamentals
- The process behavior chart
- How to build process behavior charts in Excel
- How to rigorously identify trends/patterns in business data
- How to rigorously compare groups/collections of business data
- How to communicate your insights effectively
- Additional resources to extend your learning
Geared To
- Business/data analysts, database developers, BI/report developers, managers, and anyone else interested in developing their data literacy
- No skills in programming or statistics are required
- We make no assumptions about your level of data literacy!
Lab Setup
This course requires that students have access to a licensed copy of the following software:
Instructor
Caitlin Johnson
Data Scientist
Schedulicity
Caitlin Johnson is a data scientist at Schedulicity where she uses SQL and R to analyze customer behaviors, demographic influences, and marketing opportunities. Caitlin performs statistical analyses of time series data in order to recognize exceptional variation within business processes. In addition to her analytical duties, she builds and maintains data pipelines for external data sources and partners.
Caitlin gained invaluable business knowledge as a manager in Schedulicity's Customer Experience department, gifting her with a creative and holistic perspective for analysis and an ability to communicate in such a way that insights are accessible across different audiences.
Caitlin holds a degree in Applied Mathematics from Montana State University, which empowers her to appreciate and harness the potential of data science.