The Analytics Lifecycle Toolkit

CHAPTER 12Core Competencies for Analytics Teams

Analytics competency relates to the knowledge, skills, abilities and disposition required to successfully turn data into actionable interventions.

Greg Nelson, Founder and CEO, ThotWave

INTRODUCTION

One of the single biggest challenges in building an analytics team is defining the blend of skills that will suit the team mission and the enterprise culture. To understand how to develop staff to achieve future capabilities, I strongly recommend the use of a competency model that maps analytics functions, skills, and competencies to specific organizational roles.

Developed through a process of workplace analysis and expert knowledge, the model includes nine domains of knowledge, skills, and behaviors that need to be demonstrated within the analytics team. It is noteworthy that many of the competencies that are critical for analytics have several nonstatistical and nontechnical features. The reason for this is because the model seeks to address the entire analytics lifecycle, not just analytics model development.

Analytics Competencies Defined

Analytics competency relates to the knowledge, skills, abilities, and disposition required to successfully turn data into actionable interventions.

The “data scientist” is sometimes seen as the warrior—the lone Spartan—who carves his way through data to conquer his would-be foes. As an experienced consultant, I think about this differently. The data champion is a participant in a robust ...