Analysts often assume that the best way to advance their careers or provide more value is to improve their technical chops. But most of us need further development of our soft skills rather than further honing of our hard skills. Soft skills tend to be harder to learn. That’s because unlike technical skills which you have to improve when you face a new challenge that your existing skillset can’t solve soft skills require conscious practice. Soft skills allow you to bring strategic value to your team and make sure your work solves actual business problems. Without them, you risk relegation to the role of “order taker” for the rest of your organization. To become an analyst here are 5 things you need to practice which are as follows.
Translate effectively:
Questions tend to get asked in ways that either lead in the wrong direction or require unpacking. Figuring out the underlying question, finding a proxy for that question, and communicating that assessment back to the person who asked it is not easy. It is, therefore, important data science work as it is difficult to communicate outcomes.
Ask follow-up questions:
To get to the crux of an issue, analysts need to as clarifying questions. Without asking follow-up questions to try to get to the heart of the issue, analysts can’t solve the real problem. Or, solving the problem might take many iterations. To make sure the right question gets answers takes patience and excellent skills.
Determine the incorrect flow of communication:
By the time a question makes it to an analyst, it has likely gone through a veritable game of telephone. So analysts need to be able to identify whether the information they’ve heard is accurate to conduct an accurate analysis.
Communicate your results:
Even the most sophisticated and interesting analysis will be useless if its audience cannot understand it. This means one of the most important skills an analyst can have is the ability to communicate their conclusions so that they can make it back through the telephone chain intact.
Explain and document:
Written explanation and documentation of analyses helps not only the audiences that analysts serve but other analysts in the organization. Without proper explanation, documentation, and organization, a team’s current and future analysts will inevitably reinvent one wheel or another. With excellent documentation, analysts can build on their work and create more advanced and valuable answers for their organizations over time.
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