Principles of Data Wrangling

Chapter 1. Introduction

Let’s begin with the most important question: why should you read this book? The answer is simple: you want more value from your data. To put a little more meat on that statement, our objective in writing this book is to help the variety of people who manage the analysis or application of data in their organizations. The data might or might not be “yours,” in the strict sense of ownership. But the pains in extracting value from this data are.

We’re focused on two kinds of readers. First are people who manage the analysis and application of data indirectly—the managers of teams or directors of data projects. Second are people who work with data directly—the analysts, engineers, architects, statisticians, and scientists.

If you’re reading this book, you’re interested in extracting value from data. We can categorize this value into two types along a temporal dimension: near-term value and long-term value. In the near term, you likely have a sizable list of questions that you want to answer using your data. Some of these questions might be vague; for example, “Are people really shifting toward interacting with us through their mobile devices?” Other questions might be more specific: “When will our customers’ interactions primarily originate from mobile devices instead of from desktops or laptops?”

What is stopping you from answering these questions? The most common answer we hear is “time.” You know the questions, you know how to answer them, but you just don’t ...