In general, what are analytical skills? Analytical skills are qualities and characteristics associated with solving problems using facts. Data analysts also require technical skills, which are not discussed in the post. What are the top technical skills of a Data Analyst? Excel, SQL, Tableau, Python, Power BI, and R, roughly in that order. Back to the data analyst skills in general.

Skills of a Data Analyst

• Understanding context. Context is the condition in which something exists or happens. This can be a structure or an environment. This has to do with how you group things into categories or classifications. Finding similarities and differences. Finding things that don’t belong. Putting things in order. Naming variables in a program or naming columns in a spreadsheet.
• Curiosity. This is all about wanting to learn something; having a growth mindset and inviting challenges.
• Data design. This analytical skill involves how you organize information.
• A technical mindset. This analytical skill involves breaking processes down into smaller steps and working with them in an orderly, logical way. Divide and conquer. Algorithm.
• Data Strategy. This analytical skill involves managing the people, processes and tools used in data analysis. Algorithms. Training of the people that analyze data. Software and hardware.

Analytical thinking involves identifying and defining a problem before solving it. Analytical thinking involves identifying and defining a problem and then solving it by using data in an organized, step-by-step manner. Its five key aspects are visualization (a graphical representation of information), strategy (goal-oriented, focused, algorithms), problem-orientation, correlation (relationships between data are everywhere, Correlation does not equal causation), and big-picture and detail-oriented thinking. Regarding correlation: just because Vin Deisel made more movies during high growth periods of the US GDP, does not mean they are related. you can absolutely grow and develop the skills.

You can think in different ways. You can think analytically, creatively, or critically.

A data analyst is a storyteller, a numbers person, a coder/programmer, and a business consultant.

Questions

Asking the right questions in a data analysis project is absolutely critical to the overall success of the project.

• What is the root cause of a problem? You can use the Five Whys.
• Where are the gaps in our processes? Gap analysis lets you examine and evaluate how a process works currently in order to get where you want to be in the future. In management literature, gap analysis involves the comparison of actual performance with potential or desired performance. It may involve a SWOT analysis.
• What did we not consider before when we looked at this?

Learn with YouTube

Here’s a video called 5 key skills you need to become a GREAT Data Analyst ~ Lessons from 15 years of analytics experience by Chandoo. They are: asking questions, data preparation, number crunching, story telling, and technology.

Here’s a video by Alex the Analyst called 5 Study Hacks for Beginner Data Analysts! | Live Webinar. It is one hour and seventeen minutes long.

Here are two data science websites: towards data science and medium.

Here’s another video by Alex the Analyst called Top 8 Mistakes Beginner Data Analyst’s Make | CareerFoundry Webinar. Here is the list of 8 items, rephrased by me.

1. Learn the basics well: SQL, Excel, Tableau (or Power BI) before advanced stuff
2. Ask lots of questions
3. Learn the business context – problem, challenge
4. Clean the data thoroughly
5. Don’t rush to build dashboards and reports (viz)
6. Learn your domain (industry) if you want next level
7. Document your work
8. Work with other people, communicate, help others etc.

Yet another video by Alex the Analyst. It’s called Top 5 Biggest Mistakes Beginner Data Analysts Make.

• not asking follow-up questions
• not understanding the business context
• rushing to build (not cleaning/organizing data)
• not documenting your work
• isolating yourself

Here is another list of skills that a data analyst should have, beyond the technical skills. This is from the Google Advanced Data Analytics course on Coursera.

• coachable
• passionate (for data)
• lifelong learning
• people skills
• communication
• problem solver

Why You Should Become a Data Analyst and NOT a Data Scientist by Sundas Khalid.

Here is an article on Medium called 5 Things I Wish I Knew Before My First Job as a Data Analyst by Margaret Efron.

Here’s an article on Medium called Red Flags to Watch Out for in Data Analyst Interviews.