The Data and Analytics Playbook


Book Description

The Data and Analytics Playbook: Proven Methods for Governed Data and Analytic Quality explores the way in which data continues to dominate budgets, along with the varying efforts made across a variety of business enablement projects, including applications, web and mobile computing, big data analytics, and traditional data integration. The book teaches readers how to use proven methods and accelerators to break through data obstacles to provide faster, higher quality delivery of mission critical programs. Drawing upon years of practical experience, and using numerous examples and an easy to understand playbook, Lowell Fryman, Gregory Lampshire, and Dan Meers discuss a simple, proven approach to the execution of multiple data oriented activities. In addition, they present a clear set of methods to provide reliable governance, controls, risk, and exposure management for enterprise data and the programs that rely upon it. In addition, they discuss a cost-effective approach to providing sustainable governance and quality outcomes that enhance project delivery, while also ensuring ongoing controls. Example activities, templates, outputs, resources, and roles are explored, along with different organizational models in common use today and the ways they can be mapped to leverage playbook data governance throughout the organization. - Provides a mature and proven playbook approach (methodology) to enabling data governance that supports agile implementation - Features specific examples of current industry challenges in enterprise risk management, including anti-money laundering and fraud prevention - Describes business benefit measures and funding approaches using exposure based cost models that augment risk models for cost avoidance analysis and accelerated delivery approaches using data integration sprints for application, integration, and information delivery success




The Chief Data Officer's Playbook


Book Description

This fully revised and updated edition of the bestselling Chief Data Officer’s Playbook offers new insights into the role of the CDO and the data environment. Written by two of the world’s leading experts in data driven transformation, it addresses the changes that have taken place in ‘data’, in the role of the ‘CDO’, and the expectations and ambitions of organisations. Most importantly, it will place the role of the CDO into the context of a c-suite player for organisations that wish to recover quickly and with long-term stability from the current global economic downturn. New coverage includes: - the evolution of the CDO role, what those changes mean for organisations and individuals, and what the future might hold - a focus on ethics, the data revolution and all the areas that help readers take their first steps on the data journey - new conversations and experiences from an alumni of data leaders compiled over the past three years - new chapters and reflections on being a third generation CDO and on working across a broad spectrum of organisations who are all on different parts of their data journey. Written in a highly accessible and practical manner, The Chief Data Officer’s Playbook, Second Edition brings the most up-to-date guidance to CDO’s who wish to understand their position better; to those aspiring to become CDO’s; to those who might be recruiting a CDO and to recruiters to understand an organisation seeking a CDO and the CDO landscape.




The Lean Product Playbook


Book Description

The missing manual on how to apply Lean Startup to build products that customers love The Lean Product Playbook is a practical guide to building products that customers love. Whether you work at a startup or a large, established company, we all know that building great products is hard. Most new products fail. This book helps improve your chances of building successful products through clear, step-by-step guidance and advice. The Lean Startup movement has contributed new and valuable ideas about product development and has generated lots of excitement. However, many companies have yet to successfully adopt Lean thinking. Despite their enthusiasm and familiarity with the high-level concepts, many teams run into challenges trying to adopt Lean because they feel like they lack specific guidance on what exactly they should be doing. If you are interested in Lean Startup principles and want to apply them to develop winning products, this book is for you. This book describes the Lean Product Process: a repeatable, easy-to-follow methodology for iterating your way to product-market fit. It walks you through how to: Determine your target customers Identify underserved customer needs Create a winning product strategy Decide on your Minimum Viable Product (MVP) Design your MVP prototype Test your MVP with customers Iterate rapidly to achieve product-market fit This book was written by entrepreneur and Lean product expert Dan Olsen whose experience spans product management, UX design, coding, analytics, and marketing across a variety of products. As a hands-on consultant, he refined and applied the advice in this book as he helped many companies improve their product process and build great products. His clients include Facebook, Box, Hightail, Epocrates, and Medallia. Entrepreneurs, executives, product managers, designers, developers, marketers, analysts and anyone who is passionate about building great products will find The Lean Product Playbook an indispensable, hands-on resource.




Analytics Best Practices


Book Description

Deliver enterprise data analytics success by following Prashanth's prescriptive and practical techniques. Today, organizations across the globe are looking at ways to glean insights from data analytics and make good business decisions. However, not many business enterprises are successful in data analytics. According to Gartner, 80% of analytics programs do not deliver business outcomes. Mckinsey consulting says, less than 20% of the companies have achieved analytics at scale. So, how can a business enterprise avoid analytics failure and deliver business results? This book provides ten key analytics best practices that will improve the odds of delivering enterprise data analytics solutions successfully. It is intended for anyone who has a stake and interest in deriving insights from data analytics. The three key differentiating aspects of this book are: Practicality. This book offers prescriptive, superior, and practical guidance. Completeness. This book looks at data analytics holistically across the four key data analytics domains - data management, data engineering, data science, and data visualization. Neutrality. This book is technologically agnostic and looks at analytics concepts without any reference to commercial analytics products and technologies. Dr. Southekal proves why he is one of the leading thinkers on data and analytics today. 'Analytics Best Practices' is an indispensable guide for business leaders and those looking to get into the analytics field on the nuances, challenges, and immense opportunities with data. Douglas B. Laney Principal, Data & Analytics Strategy, Caserta, and author of "Infonomics"




Lean Analytics


Book Description

Whether you're a startup founder trying to disrupt an industry or an entrepreneur trying to provoke change from within, your biggest challenge is creating a product people actually want. Lean Analytics steers you in the right direction. This book shows you how to validate your initial idea, find the right customers, decide what to build, how to monetize your business, and how to spread the word. Packed with more than thirty case studies and insights from over a hundred business experts, Lean Analytics provides you with hard-won, real-world information no entrepreneur can afford to go without. Understand Lean Startup, analytics fundamentals, and the data-driven mindset Look at six sample business models and how they map to new ventures of all sizes Find the One Metric That Matters to you Learn how to draw a line in the sand, so you'll know it's time to move forward Apply Lean Analytics principles to large enterprises and established products




Agile Analytics


Book Description

Using Agile methods, you can bring far greater innovation, value, and quality to any data warehousing (DW), business intelligence (BI), or analytics project. However, conventional Agile methods must be carefully adapted to address the unique characteristics of DW/BI projects. In Agile Analytics, Agile pioneer Ken Collier shows how to do just that. Collier introduces platform-agnostic Agile solutions for integrating infrastructures consisting of diverse operational, legacy, and specialty systems that mix commercial and custom code. Using working examples, he shows how to manage analytics development teams with widely diverse skill sets and how to support enormous and fast-growing data volumes. Collier's techniques offer optimal value whether your projects involve "back-end" data management, "front-end" business analysis, or both. Part I focuses on Agile project management techniques and delivery team coordination, introducing core practices that shape the way your Agile DW/BI project community can collaborate toward success Part II presents technical methods for enabling continuous delivery of business value at production-quality levels, including evolving superior designs; test-driven DW development; version control; and project automation Collier brings together proven solutions you can apply right now--whether you're an IT decision-maker, data warehouse professional, database administrator, business intelligence specialist, or database developer. With his help, you can mitigate project risk, improve business alignment, achieve better results--and have fun along the way.







Predictive Analytics


Book Description

"Mesmerizing & fascinating..." —The Seattle Post-Intelligencer "The Freakonomics of big data." —Stein Kretsinger, founding executive of Advertising.com Award-winning | Used by over 30 universities | Translated into 9 languages An introduction for everyone. In this rich, fascinating — surprisingly accessible — introduction, leading expert Eric Siegel reveals how predictive analytics (aka machine learning) works, and how it affects everyone every day. Rather than a “how to” for hands-on techies, the book serves lay readers and experts alike by covering new case studies and the latest state-of-the-art techniques. Prediction is booming. It reinvents industries and runs the world. Companies, governments, law enforcement, hospitals, and universities are seizing upon the power. These institutions predict whether you're going to click, buy, lie, or die. Why? For good reason: predicting human behavior combats risk, boosts sales, fortifies healthcare, streamlines manufacturing, conquers spam, optimizes social networks, toughens crime fighting, and wins elections. How? Prediction is powered by the world's most potent, flourishing unnatural resource: data. Accumulated in large part as the by-product of routine tasks, data is the unsalted, flavorless residue deposited en masse as organizations churn away. Surprise! This heap of refuse is a gold mine. Big data embodies an extraordinary wealth of experience from which to learn. Predictive analytics (aka machine learning) unleashes the power of data. With this technology, the computer literally learns from data how to predict the future behavior of individuals. Perfect prediction is not possible, but putting odds on the future drives millions of decisions more effectively, determining whom to call, mail, investigate, incarcerate, set up on a date, or medicate. In this lucid, captivating introduction — now in its Revised and Updated edition — former Columbia University professor and Predictive Analytics World founder Eric Siegel reveals the power and perils of prediction: What type of mortgage risk Chase Bank predicted before the recession. Predicting which people will drop out of school, cancel a subscription, or get divorced before they even know it themselves. Why early retirement predicts a shorter life expectancy and vegetarians miss fewer flights. Five reasons why organizations predict death — including one health insurance company. How U.S. Bank and Obama for America calculated the way to most strongly persuade each individual. Why the NSA wants all your data: machine learning supercomputers to fight terrorism. How IBM's Watson computer used predictive modeling to answer questions and beat the human champs on TV's Jeopardy! How companies ascertain untold, private truths — how Target figures out you're pregnant and Hewlett-Packard deduces you're about to quit your job. How judges and parole boards rely on crime-predicting computers to decide how long convicts remain in prison. 182 examples from Airbnb, the BBC, Citibank, ConEd, Facebook, Ford, Google, the IRS, LinkedIn, Match.com, MTV, Netflix, PayPal, Pfizer, Spotify, Uber, UPS, Wikipedia, and more. How does predictive analytics work? This jam-packed book satisfies by demystifying the intriguing science under the hood. For future hands-on practitioners pursuing a career in the field, it sets a strong foundation, delivers the prerequisite knowledge, and whets your appetite for more. A truly omnipresent science, predictive analytics constantly affects our daily lives. Whether you are a




Storytelling with Data


Book Description

Don't simply show your data—tell a story with it! Storytelling with Data teaches you the fundamentals of data visualization and how to communicate effectively with data. You'll discover the power of storytelling and the way to make data a pivotal point in your story. The lessons in this illuminative text are grounded in theory, but made accessible through numerous real-world examples—ready for immediate application to your next graph or presentation. Storytelling is not an inherent skill, especially when it comes to data visualization, and the tools at our disposal don't make it any easier. This book demonstrates how to go beyond conventional tools to reach the root of your data, and how to use your data to create an engaging, informative, compelling story. Specifically, you'll learn how to: Understand the importance of context and audience Determine the appropriate type of graph for your situation Recognize and eliminate the clutter clouding your information Direct your audience's attention to the most important parts of your data Think like a designer and utilize concepts of design in data visualization Leverage the power of storytelling to help your message resonate with your audience Together, the lessons in this book will help you turn your data into high impact visual stories that stick with your audience. Rid your world of ineffective graphs, one exploding 3D pie chart at a time. There is a story in your data—Storytelling with Data will give you the skills and power to tell it!




Tableau Prep: Up & Running


Book Description

For self-service data preparation, Tableau Prep is relatively easy to use—as long as you know how to clean and organize your datasets. Carl Allchin, from The Information Lab in London, gets you up to speed on Tableau Prep through a series of practical lessons that include methods for preparing, cleaning, automating, organizing, and outputting your datasets. Based on Allchin’s popular blog, Preppin’ Data, this practical guide takes you step-by-step through Tableau Prep’s fundamentals. Self-service data preparation reduces the time it takes to complete data projects and improves the quality of your analyses. Discover how Tableau Prep helps you access your data and turn it into valuable information. Know what to look for when you prepare data Learn which Tableau Prep functions to use when working with data fields Analyze the shape and profile of your dataset Output data for analysis and learn how Tableau Prep automates your workflow Learn how to clean your dataset using Tableau Prep functions Explore ways to use Tableau Prep techniques in real-world scenarios Make your data available to others by managing and documenting the output