The document provides tips for surviving and thriving as an analyst. It emphasizes developing soft skills like communication, the ability to quickly learn new topics, and storytelling to add context to findings. Analysts should speak up in meetings, speed up iterations to get frequent feedback, socialize their work with others, standardize processes, and focus on understanding the why behind business requests rather than just technical skills. Developing these soft skills is vital for career growth more than technical skills alone.
1. HOW TO SURVIVE
AS AN ANALYST
A F E W T I P S A N D T R I C K S F R O M B A T T L E S L O S T A N D
W O N W O R K I N G I N T H E I N D U S T R Y
natevalentin.com
2. WHO AM I?
WHY SHOULD YOU LISTEN…
• Nate Valentin
– VP Product Development at Seer Analytics (Tampa, FL) 2016
– Multi-million dollar local analytics company focusing on market research, geospatial and
predictive analytics
• Background
– Director of Product Development, Seer Analytics (Tampa, FL) 2015
• Build mobile application, operational dashboards, Experian partnership…
– Business Intelligence Manager, Triad Retail Media (St. Petersburg, FL) 2014
• Create enterprise dashboard, Hadoop POC, Tableau Server roll-out…
– Senior Business Analyst, TJX Companies (Framingham, MA) 2013
• Designed and executed nationwide analysis of all transactions to diagnose network failures…
– Hydrologist/ Data Analyst, SWFWMD (Tampa, FL) 2009-2012
• Created tool to help design and simulate alternative water resources…natevalentin.com
3. TECHNICAL BACKGROUND
• Tableau
• Tableau Server
• Alteryx
• Talend
• Pentaho
• R
• SQL
• Klipfolio
• Amazon Web Services
• Web Development
• PostgeSQL/ SQL Server/ MySQL
• Hadoop (Hortonworks)
natevalentin.com
4. WHAT THIS WILL NOT BE ABOUT
• Technical Skills
– We will not be talking about SQL, R, python, etc…
• Industry Specific Use Cases
– I have worked in government, advertising, retail and now in analytics consulting and product
development. I have view points on all of these sectors but that is another discussion
• Statistics
– I am not a professor and although I use statistics a great deal you don’t want me to talk
about math
• Software
– There isn’t enough time and frankly there are so many articles and YouTube videos out
there that you don’t need my help learning how to add a trend line or make a graph dual
axis. natevalentin.com
5. MY ASSUMPTIONS
• You are smart
• The technical skills to be an analyst are already there for each of you or you posses the
ability to attain them, as needed
• You already know how to think analytically/ logically
• You naturally are drawn to problem solving
• You question everything already
• You are here because you want to be (that is a step in the right direction…)
natevalentin.com
6. WHAT NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT
• Development of soft skills and the ability to communicate is vital to career growth
• Too heavy of a technical focus
– ‘If only I knew how to…’ mentality
– Articles on LinkedIn or Flipboard (maybe your coursework is like this too…) focus on:
• Top Machine Learning Languages
• R vs Python
• Best Visualization Tool
• Analytics
– In almost all initial use cases is an ad-hoc process. This is both wonderful and terrible as it
gives room for freedom and also is highly inefficient. This makes balancing an analytical
work load very difficult.
natevalentin.com
7. THE DIFFERENCE MAKER(S)
• Your ability to quickly ramp up on new subject matter
• Your ability to communicate your findings with business users
• Your ability to empower business users to leverage the findings of your analysis
• Your ability to set realistic expectations and deliver on them
• Your ability to see the work you are doing through the eyes of the party that it is
intended for
• Your ability to socialize your findings/ abilities with your peers
• Your ability to SEEK out and PROCESS critical feedback
natevalentin.com
8. REMEMBER THESE 5 THINGS
• Speak Up
– Don’t let your opinion go unheard in meetings, don’t say yes to everything
• Speed Up
– Faster iterations and more frequent feedback from business users
• Socialize
– Share what you know with your peers and the business
• Standardize
• Build processes around repeat requests; implement standards/ layouts when possible
• Storytelling
– Add context to your findings to make them relevant and actionable (benchmarks, indices, etc.)
natevalentin.com
9. SPEAK UP
• Share your opinion and thoughts, respectfully, while the work is being discussed
• If you have a better option, share it. It does no good left inside your head.
• ‘I don’t know’ is a perfectly good answer. You can always say that you will look into it
and get back to them.
• Don’t simply agree to every requests you are asked for. Use phrases like the below to
make sure the impact of the request, on your current workload, is addressed:
– Yes, but…
– Which task is a priority...
– In order to do that I would need...
natevalentin.com
10. SPEED UP
• Don’t fall into the ‘Home Run Trap’
• Establish a feedback loop with the business for requests (touch base in 2 days, every
Friday, etc…)
• Get feedback early and often from the business regarding your progress on their
request(s)
• It is all about cycle times. How quickly can you do work, get feedback, make necessary
changes, share your progress, get feedback again... before delivering the final product.
This always leads to higher quality deliverables.
natevalentin.com
11. SOCIALIZE
• Sharing what you have found with others and/ or teaching others how to use a new
tool, etc. is a sign of leadership (people will take notice)
• Withholding information from others does not make you a more valuable asset to the
company
• Sit with business users to understand how they use your findings to do their job
• Hold standing meetings with business users to understand what their needs are
• Form an alliance with business users don’t view them as the enemy
• Gain as many perspectives as you can (management, marketing, sales, operations,
etc…)
natevalentin.com
12. STANDARDIZE
• Create documentation to support routine requests
– Don’t assume you will just remember everything the next time you have to do something similar;
you won’t.
• Create templates whenever possible
• Use socialization as an opportunity to train others on how to do tasks/ exercises that you
created
• Come up with standard file handling conventions
– Logical folder structures with descriptive names
– Append dates to the end of files, etc.
• Free up time by:
– Delegating
– Automating
– Eliminating
natevalentin.com
13. STORYTELLING
• Add context to your findings
– Is year over year data available? Can I pull in something to serve as a point of reference?
– Is there another data source that I can add to make these findings more interesting/
actionable?
• An analysis of Uber ride data vs an analysis of Uber ride data with an overlay of social events or
weather
• Create benchmarks/ standards
– Don’t let the absence of benchmarks/ standards be an excuse not to include it. Create it
yourself because no one else will.
– Make assumptions on how best to do this and share them with others (the business
especially)
– Constantly evolve your benchmarks or indices as you learn more about the specific use
cases
– Publish benchmarks internally, along with the assumptions made to create them, so
natevalentin.com
14. RECOMMENDATIONS
• Enterprise Tools to Request from your IT department
– Jira (ticketing system)
– #Slack (instant messenger platform designed for businesses)
• Use Time Blocking
• Books to Read
– Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson
– Start with With by Simon Sinek
– Multipliers by Liz Wiesman
– The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
• Think of yourself as a brand
• Wear laceless shoes whenever possible (a metaphor for being in a position to change
policy) natevalentin.com
15. ONE FINAL POINT
The single biggest difference between myself and my colleagues, over the years, has not
been my technical ability, it has been my ability to execute on the things I just discussed.
A focus on understanding the businesses need(s) and delivering valuable contextually
interesting findings over elaborate analytical exercises/ models has led to exceptional
results and career growth.
The technical skills you posses will be ‘how’ you do your work as an analyst but to truly
thrive you need to understand ‘why’ the work is being requested of you.
natevalentin.com
