Answering Common Questions from Citizen Data Scientist Candidates!
When a business engages its team members and asks them to take on the role of Citizen Data Scientist, there can be many misunderstandings regarding the new role. One of the most common misunderstandings relates to who does what in the role of analytics. Some common questions include:
“Who does the analytics on a day-to-day basis?”
“What if I don’t know how to use analytics software?”
“What does my manager expect me to do with the information I get from the analytics?”
“Am I expected to produce 100% accurate analysis?
“What if I need help?”
Let’s take these questions one at a time:
“Who does the analytics on a day-to-day basis?”
The business user will leverage an augmented analytics system to perform analytics on a daily basis. These analytics should be related to and support the team member’s role in the business. Using augmented analytics and predictive modeling techniques, a team member can combine their domain, industry and professional knowledge to perform analysis that will help them make everyday decisions.
“What if I don’t know how to use analytics software?”
A great augmented analytics solution is designed for users with average technical skills. Auto-recommendations, suggestions and guidance will walk team members through the process and make it easy to use analytics as part of the normal work process. No extensive training is required.
“What does my manager expect me to do with the information I get from the analytics?”
To support a Citizen Data Scientist initiative, the organization and its managers will look to Citizen Data Scientists to use the analytics they perform to make recommendations and suggestions on how to improve the business, how to be more productive, how to be more competitive, etc. With appropriate culture change within the organization, the evaluation and employee assessment process should reward the business user who embraces and uses analytics on a daily basis. This new process ensures that decisions are fact-based and that business users are leveraging metrics to manage day-to-day work.
“Am I expected to produce 100% accurate analysis?
While augmented analytics tools and queries will produce high-quality results, the Citizen Data Scientist should expect to use analytics for daily decisions and, as such, is not focused on strategic initiatives. If and when a user needs to refine analytics to elevate information to a senior executive or to test theories and information gathered from day-to-day analytics, a business analyst or data scientist can take the analytics produced by the business user and perform additional analysis.
“What if I need help?”
With the right deployment and implementation process, IT teams, analysts and ‘champions’ of data analytics will be available for questions. These questions typically occur in the beginning when a Citizen Data Scientist is new to their role and will abate as the business user becomes more comfortable with the analytical tools and techniques and new role.
Our Article, ‘Provide the Right Augmented Analytics Solution and Features for Business Users’ will provide more detail on these augmented analytics tools to support the Citizen Data Scientist role and improve data literacy.
If you are a newly minted Citizen Data Scientist, you don’t have to do this alone! Contact Us to today or Click Here to explore training for Citizen Data Scientists, designed to help you succeed on your Citizen Data Scientist journey.