An Analytics Journey from Gary Angel

Gary Angel delivered an amazing speech in Microsoft One Analyst Conference in June 2019. here are some note takings and thoughts on data analysis.

Reporting is (mostly) a waste of time

When the media, leaderships boast about data driven business, how data is important, how data is the gold in future. We have to face it, reports and analysis generated by data science teams are almost wasted. almost no body want to read it, don’t even mention take actions on it.

Angel’s reporting rule of thumb:

• 90% of all reports are never viewed
• 90% of reports read are misinterpreted
• 90% of understood reports are never acted on
• KPIs are deeply misunderstood and stupid (how could you evaluate an event or take actions based on one KPI number?)

So, what we should do, give up and never touch data and make decision by gut? no way. Gary said Reports are supposed to convey knowledge, and build models into your reports.

I am ready now, but…. my data sucks

Data sucks because of the lacking of data governance, however, I can’t do the governance before doing any analytics. A loop.

How to solve the problem.

1. Conducting analytics and data governance as side-by-side activities, don’t start with on or the other alone.