What critical questions should businesses ask themselves to get the most out of their data?

#1

I’ll go first!

How much of our data are we really using and how much is under-leveraged?

With the rapidly increasing in-flow of data, there’s a growing enthusiasm in organizations of all sizes to implement data-driven methodologies. While some choose to use a solutions partner to do a thorough evaluation, some decide to dive in themselves.

To each their own but it is important to cover all corners to ensure one is not missing out on important insights gaining opportunities.

What questions would you add to this list?

#2

Who is the intended audience and what insights are they looking for?

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#3

Not everything that is asked for can be implemented. When a business user, one that does not know what information is stored in the underlying data, asks something, sometimes can’t be done, just because the data that is suppose to answer the questions asked, doesn’t have the information needed to fulfil the request. So, it’s important to have someone that knows what data is gathered in the the data source along with the one who has the need, normally a business user.

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#4

“What metrics are we not looking into?”
“Where are our data silos?”

For organizations “new” to data (as in, those that are still mostly “doing data” via spreadsheets and manual analysis), interviewing everyone in the organization to see how they’re doing analysis can also save people a lot of time – I’ve found that some similar spreadsheet work was being done by multiple people, and unfortunately not always doing it correctly (think averages of averages, funky calculations).

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#5

What is the goal you are trying to accomplish. Can you elaborate why is that relevant? Also, after getting as much details as possible, try to see if there is a gap what business is asking and what is available in terms of data.

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#6

What is the Role of business uesr and his responsibilities? Based on received answer we can prepare and display key metrics on dashboard to take appropriate decision making to improve the business performance.

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#7

“What is the X we’re trying to solve for?” It’s easy to ignore and miss things if you go in looking for confirmation of what you’re expecting. Knowing what problem you’re trying to solve and keeping an open mind to the results will help you and your end user see the data more holistically

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#8

Why is this thread linked from the " Facts vs. ‘fake news’ " discussion shortcut? It doesn’t seem to be but tangentially related.

#9

Thanks for pointing that out, Ken. I’ve corrected the link in the activity. Facts vs. Fake news should be pointing to this one - What can we do to overcome misinformation and build trust? - Community Discussions - The Dundas Community | User Forums (influitive.com)

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#10

Thanks, I replied over there. That’s a heavy topic!

For this one, I think your question is the answer. Not trying to be funny, but businesses will get the most out of their data by ensuring that they are forming questions.

That is, a good question is the best way to ensure that the right data are collected, the right analyses are performed, and the right visuals are presented. I even prefer to write the question being asked at the top of my dashboards. If the dash can’t answer the question, then it needs reform.

Not a question: We can turn our sales data into nice charts and graphs.
An underdeveloped question: What can our data tell us about sales?
A good question: Where are our customers that don’t know about us but buy when they hear about us, so we can run local tv ads to them?

I know most people reading this already get the idea, but I still think it’s important to say: always ensure that questions ARE the basis of data analysis!

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#11

Again, you make a good point here, Ken! And thanks for putting down example of what a good question looks like. Appreciate it!

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