Thinking with Data

Preface

Working with data is about producing knowledge. Whether that knowledge is consumed by a person or acted on by a machine, our goal as professionals working with data is to use observations to learn about how the world works. We want to turn information into insights, and asking the right questions ensures that we’re creating insights about the right things. The purpose of this book is to help us understand that these are our goals and that we are not alone in this pursuit.

I work as a data strategy consultant. I help people figure out what problems they are trying to solve, how to solve them, and what to do with them once the problems are “solved.” This book grew out of the recognition that the problem of asking good questions and knowing how to put the answers together is not a new one. This problem—the problem of turning observations into knowledge—is one that has been worked on again and again and again by experts in a variety of disciplines. We have much to learn from them.

People use data to make knowledge to accomplish a wide variety of things. There is no one goal of all data work, just as there is no one job description that encapsulates it. Consider this incomplete list of things that can be made better with data:

• Answering a factual question
• Telling a story
• Exploring a relationship
• Discovering a pattern
• Making a case for a decision
• Automating a process
• Judging an experiment

Doing each of these well in a data-driven way draws on different strengths and skills. ...