I was reminded today in a book I'm reading on visual analytics that the purpose of any analytical project is ultimately to make better decisions. Coming from a mixed business and IT background, I have had my fair share of IT vs. Business conundrums. With my IT hat on, I'm always thinking about efficiency, optimisation, ease-of-use,... Continue Reading →
For the lack of a plan
I spent close to five hours working on an assignment that I thought would take me an hour at the most. It was an ad hoc project, and as often the case with many ad hoc projects you can’t really tell how long they’d take till they were done. My initial estimations were based off... Continue Reading →
The importance of domain knowledge for a business analyst
I was part of team working on an analytics project that sought strong reasons to back up a major business decision, but found myself contributing much less than I’d have wanted to. It wasn’t technical ability that I was lacking in. Rather, it was a distinct lack of industry/business knowledge that bottlenecked my value. I’m... Continue Reading →
Risk vs. Uncertainty (Part II): The Secure Print & Scan Edition
I remember once talking to a friend in HR who lamented the fact that her office didn’t have a way to securely scan or print documents. Because she worked in a department with highly sensitive data, I thought that it was strange it wasn’t made available to her. I recommended that she put in a... Continue Reading →
Risk vs. Uncertainty (Part I)
I can’t believe I didn’t write about it before today: the difference between uncertainty and risk. I’d originally thought that uncertainty and risk were one and the same. If you’re uncertain about something, about taking some action, and you had to decide whether or not to take that action, it was a risky action to... Continue Reading →
Confounding and the measurement of the MRT off peak initiative
The Singapore government announced a while back that they were going to start an initiative to try to reduce peak period crowds on our public rail system or MRT (Mass Rapid Transit). The initiative involved providing free and subsidised travel for passengers on selected trips during the morning off-peak period. This initiative kicked off two... Continue Reading →
Student loans and how the deed is infinitely stronger than the word
Interesting article giving the perspectives of three people with outstanding student loans and how they're paying it off. I'd never been that heavily in debt and I do sometimes wonder what I'd do. Though I cannot say for sure, I do not see myself holding off the payment of loans if I could I help... Continue Reading →
Analytics Adoption: Evolutionary vs. Revolutionary Technology
In this post about analytics adoption, I'd like to start with a short story. The wife and I got ourselves each a Samsung Galaxy S4 over the weekend. Though it’s a great phone, we couldn’t help but feel that there was a distinct lack of a “wow” factor. We both moved to the S4 from... Continue Reading →
User requests are like hunger pangs
“So, when is the [request] going to be ready?” he asks me, the fourth person to ask in a one-week period. This, I think to myself, is probably real hunger. “I’m working on it,” I reply, which means I’m waiting it out to determine how important the request really is. The moment I can confidently... Continue Reading →
What do you do? I’m an analyst.
“So,” my wife’s friend asks, “what do you do?” I pause for a moment, prepare to say “business analyst”, but then decide not to because I didn’t think she’d understand what I did. I look at my wife and ask her, “what do I do?”, hoping she'd have a better answer. My wife looks at... Continue Reading →
Donn, fragments 