2.1 Tasks
2.1.5 Formulate Research Questions
Guide to Business Data Analytics
Supporting Knowledge
Before any of the detailed analytics work is performed, the stakeholders formulate the question that the analytics will answer. The research inquiries are derived from the business needs. The business need is problem or opportunity of strategic or tactical importance to be addressed.
For example, if the business need is to improve the customer experience of a retail store, the questions will be:
Formulating the research question involves facilitating discussions to identify the different problems to be explored, specifying the questions in an easily understood language, and bringing the team to a consensus as to the best set of analytics questions to answer.
Analysts require the skills to identify the right problem or opportunity and to focus the team on the right question to ensure the analytics work is guided properly. Discussions move beyond brainstorming a list of ideas to producing a concrete list of specific analytics questions the team believes are worth pursuing. On occasion, the team may need to identify what data are available before determining which ideas are achievable with analytics. The question, once formed, guides the scope and drives the activities of the analytics team.
The results of the analysis obtained when defining the business problem or opportunity, analyzing the current state, and defining the future state provides context when formulating the analytics questions. The analytics team, including business stakeholders, may start with a long list of questions and require ongoing collaboration to reduce the list identifying the highest valued questions to use. Technical resources or the analyst, based on their understanding of the data and the business problem or opportunity, may suggest an analytics problem that could be explored.
Good analytics questions are clearly stated and do not use technical language. The questions are reviewed with all stakeholders to ensure consensus that clearly articulates what the organization is looking to answer through analytics. In the Perform Data Analysis task (for more information, see 2.3.4 Perform Data Analysis), the data scientist/analytics experts restate the analytics questions using more mathematical language.
There are situations where it is more efficient for an analytics team to address a group of questions for multiple initiatives, rather than individual initiatives asking one question at a time.
When formulating research questions, analysts utilize a variety of elicitation techniques to facilitate discussions with stakeholders, decision models to help the team reach consensus, and templates to guide the development of the question. Strong facilitation, leadership and negotiation skills are useful when facilitating consensus among stakeholders.
For example, if the business need is to improve the customer experience of a retail store, the questions will be:
- What are the factors that influence customer experience? (Descriptive analytics)
- What are the measures for evaluating customer experience? (Descriptive analytics)
- How do you classify individual transactions on the retail side as a positive or negative experience? (Predictive analytics)
- Will customer experience improve by adding a new feature such as a pay wallet? (Prescriptive analytics)
Formulating the research question involves facilitating discussions to identify the different problems to be explored, specifying the questions in an easily understood language, and bringing the team to a consensus as to the best set of analytics questions to answer.
Analysts require the skills to identify the right problem or opportunity and to focus the team on the right question to ensure the analytics work is guided properly. Discussions move beyond brainstorming a list of ideas to producing a concrete list of specific analytics questions the team believes are worth pursuing. On occasion, the team may need to identify what data are available before determining which ideas are achievable with analytics. The question, once formed, guides the scope and drives the activities of the analytics team.
The results of the analysis obtained when defining the business problem or opportunity, analyzing the current state, and defining the future state provides context when formulating the analytics questions. The analytics team, including business stakeholders, may start with a long list of questions and require ongoing collaboration to reduce the list identifying the highest valued questions to use. Technical resources or the analyst, based on their understanding of the data and the business problem or opportunity, may suggest an analytics problem that could be explored.
Good analytics questions are clearly stated and do not use technical language. The questions are reviewed with all stakeholders to ensure consensus that clearly articulates what the organization is looking to answer through analytics. In the Perform Data Analysis task (for more information, see 2.3.4 Perform Data Analysis), the data scientist/analytics experts restate the analytics questions using more mathematical language.
There are situations where it is more efficient for an analytics team to address a group of questions for multiple initiatives, rather than individual initiatives asking one question at a time.
When formulating research questions, analysts utilize a variety of elicitation techniques to facilitate discussions with stakeholders, decision models to help the team reach consensus, and templates to guide the development of the question. Strong facilitation, leadership and negotiation skills are useful when facilitating consensus among stakeholders.
