Understanding the business question

Forming Analytical Questions

Konstantinos Kattidis

Data Analytics Lead

Discover what really matters

A clearly defined problem will have clarity on the following:

What the business wants to know
What decisions need to be made
Who will use the results
Any other information that is important to know

Woman looking for directions

Communication practices

People communicating

Encourage input using open-ended questions.

Confirm understanding by paraphrasing.

Summarize the discoveries learned from the conversation.

Encourage input using open-ended questions

"Tell me more about..."

"What led you to this..."

Use it in order to:

Uncover new perspectives
Gain a more comprehensive understanding of the problem

Discussions and a light buld

Confirm understanding by paraphrasing

Restate the problem in your own words
Confirm with the stakeholders

Use it in order to:

Ensure that they have accurately interpreted the problem
Build trust and rapport with the stakeholders

Repeat back and puzzle pieces

Summarize the discoveries learned

Use it in order to:

Stay focused on the critical elements of the problem.
Move forward in the right direction.

Person summarizing information

Use of open-ended questions

Example: "CozySpace.com".

Communication clouds

Marketing team: We want to assess the effectiveness of our recent campaign.

Analytics team: Can you tell us more details about the campaign?

Marketing team: Sure, we reached out to the customer group through social media advertising and we want to know how many customers have made a booking as a result of the campaign.

Confirm understanding by paraphrasing

Example: "CozySpace.com". Communication clouds

Marketing team: The customer group consists of frequent travelers who live in the US and have made at least 3 bookings in the past year.

Analytics team: Ok, so you want to measure the campaign effectiveness measured by the number of bookings for the group of frequent travelers in the US.

Marketing team: Yes, correct!

Summarize the discoveries

Example: "CozySpace.com". Communication clouds

Analytics team: To summarize, you want to measure the campaign effectiveness measured by the number of bookings for the group of frequent travelers in US. The analysis will be used to decide if the same campaign is effective and can be applied for future sales events. This needs to be presented to senior management at the end of the month.

Let's practice!

Forming Analytical Questions