CCBA® and CBAP® Certifications Study Guide

Element 3: Trends

When analyzing performance data, business analysts must consider the age of the data that is being used for trend analysis. If the data is out of date and deemed not relevant to the current analysis, it should be replaced with more relevant and timely datasets to prevent any skewed or misinterpreted findings. A larger sample size over a sufficiently long time period will provide a much more accurate depiction of solution performance on which to base decisions. This will also assist you in guarding against false signals brought about by incomplete data.

Let's consider a real-world example:

A sudden increase in the credit card transaction volumes at the same time of day recorded over a period of a couple of months could indicate ...