Data evaluation and the 4 sorts of questions it attempts to reply

This is a component of a series on Strategic Data Evaluation.

Strategic Data Evaluation (Part 1) ← You’re here?
Strategic Data Evaluation for Descriptive Questions (Part 2) ← Coming soon!
Strategic Data Evaluation for Diagnostic Questions (Part 3) ← Coming soon!
Strategic Data Evaluation for Predictive Questions (Part 4) ← Coming soon!
Strategic Data Evaluation for Prescriptive Questions (Part 5) ← Coming soon!

In my 10 years of tenure in working with data in any capability, I’ve noticed how much focus there’s in learning quantitative techniques with a purpose to do data evaluation. I even have spent hundreds of hours perfecting my knowledge of the whole lot from statistics to machine learning to economics and beyond. Nonetheless, I discovered little or no guidance within the strategic approach to answering business questions by utilizing data evaluation. I even have also encountered many junior analysts who steadily mistake data evaluation for its quantitative techniques, disregarding the indisputable fact that evaluation is a robust way of considering and an important problem solving tool — i.e. data evaluation shouldn’t be only a product of its methods.

On this multi-part series, I hope to do an information evaluation primer that can provide a structured approach to using evaluation with a purpose to answer business questions. In Part 1, I’ll introduce data evaluation and the 4 sorts of questions that it might help answer. This could be used as guidance for identifying evaluation questions accurately. In the next posts, I’ll propose a technique for answering each sort of query and a strategy for choosing the proper techniques. I hope you discover this guide useful — let me know within the comments!

So what’s data evaluation and what’s it trying to attain? Generally, evaluation is a means of understanding some complex information by breaking it down into smaller and simpler pieces and understanding those pieces first. This process is used to assist solve problems or answer questions. As in the overall case, data evaluation is a means of understanding something about complex data by trying to grasp more manageable details about it.

Analysts can perform an array of techniques with a purpose to do data evaluation. As an illustration, if we…