6.4.2.Caveats and limitations to data & Listen, respond, and include - sj50179/Google-Data-Analytics-Professional-Certificate GitHub Wiki

Be prepared to consider any limitations of your data by:

  • Critically analyzing the correlations
  • Looking at the context
  • Understanding the strengths and weakness of the tools

Question

What does a colleague test help you assess? Select all that apply.

  • What questions your stakeholders might have
  • What assumptions your stakeholders might make
  • What areas of your presentation might be unclear
  • What your colleagues have contributed to your presentation

Correct. A colleague test helps you assess what questions your stakeholders might have, what assumptions they might make, and what areas of your presentation might be unclear.

Preparing for the Q&A

When working on any project, it is important to understand from the beginning what stakeholders expect of you. This reading will be all about preparing questions to ask before planning your data gathering and presentations.

There are many things to consider before you begin asking and answering possible questions – like the objective, stakeholder expectations, and if there are any limitations. Make sure you have everything covered before you begin. The checklist below identifies ten tasks that you should engage in to be well prepared for your Q&A:

Before the presentation

  1. Assemble and prepare your questions.
  2. Discuss your presentation with your manager, other analysts, or other friendly contacts in your organization.
  3. Ask a manager or other analysts what sort of questions were normally asked by your specific audience in the past.
  4. Seek comments, feedback, and questions on the deck or the document of your analysis.
  5. At least 24 hours ahead of the presentation, try and brainstorm tricky questions or unclear parts you may come across- this helps avoid surprises.
  6. It never hurts to practice what you will be presenting, to account for any missing information or simply to calm your nerves.

During the presentation

  1. Be prepared to respond to the things that you find and effectively and accurately explain your findings.
  2. Address potential questions that may come up.
  3. Avoid having a single question derail a presentation and propose following-up offline.
  4. Put supplementary visualizations and content in the appendix to help answer questions.

Practice makes perfect

Preparing for a presentation or a meeting doesn’t have to be intimidating. If you invest time into knowing your audience, crafting your notes, doing necessary research and organizing your data, then there is very little reason why your audience will not be engaged, even impressed.

Handling objections

Types of objections

  • About the data
    • Where you got the data?
    • What systems it came from?
    • What transformations happened to it?
    • How fresh and accurate is the data?
  • About your analysis
    • Is your analysis reproducible?
    • Who did you get feedback from?
  • About your findings
    • Do these findings exist in previous time periods?
    • Did you control for the differences in your data?

Responding to possible objections

  • Communicate any assumptions
  • Explain why your analysis might be different than expected
  • Acknowledge that those objections are valid and take steps to investigate further

Question

When you give a presentation, stakeholders could raise objections about the data, your analysis, or your findings. How can you best prepare to address potential objections? Select all that apply.

  • Address data sources at the beginning of your presentation
  • Describe your analytical process in the appendix
  • Provide resources for stakeholders to dive further into the data
  • Create a longer presentation to include as much detail as possible

Correct. You can prepare to address potential objections by providing extra detail about your analytical process in the appendix. You can also address data sources in the beginning of your presentation and provide resources for stakeholders to dive further into the data.

Question

You are giving a presentation, and at the end, a stakeholder has an objection. What steps should you take in your response? Select all that apply.

  • Re-present your data visualizations
  • Take steps to investigate further
  • Acknowledge the objection
  • Repeat your findings for clarity

Correct. If your stakeholder has a concern about a problem you didn’t realize, you can acknowledge the objection and promise to take steps to investigate further.

Real-world objections

Respond to a business task

While delivering a presentation to an audience, your primary goal is to respond to a business task. A business task is a question or problem you use data to solve—and a presentation demonstrates how to solve it. Business tasks can have a variety of contexts and scopes, so the details of your presentation will depend on a lot of factors.

Sometimes, you may receive questions or objections about your presentation. This is normal, as your audience wants to understand your presentation as completely as possible. Responding to these questions and objections in a clear, concise, and polite manner is crucial to delivering an effective presentation.

Examples of objections

Consider the following situations where a data analyst delivers a presentation and receives an objection:

  1. An analyst is presenting on the sales revenue of their company’s new product: an autonomous vacuum cleaning robot. The analyst shows the steps they took for each part of the analysis. They are confident that they have explained each step very thoroughly, but a stakeholder is confused when the presentation is over. They share a concern that the analysis may be incomplete.
  2. An analyst is presenting on the effectiveness of a new drug treatment for heartburn. They use data from an external private company that describes how common heartburn is in the United States. After the presentation, they receive an objection from their stakeholder about the data collected. The stakeholder is concerned that the source of the data may not be reputable, and is unsure about the credentials of the data’s source company.
  3. An analyst is presenting on the traffic patterns of a particular highway in their city. After extensive research and analysis, they conclude that Friday is the busiest day for commuters on that highway. One of the stakeholders, who commutes along that highway, disagrees and believes that Monday is the busiest day for traffic.

Reflection

Consider an objection from one of the three previous scenarios:

  • If you were the data analyst involved, how would you respond to your stakeholders?
  • What would be the impact of not addressing these objections?
  • Using the first scenario as an example: If you receive an objection about the completeness of your analysis, you should politely acknowledge the objection. Then, reiterate each step you took in your analysis and explain why you did each one. Finally, promise to investigate your analysis question further so that the analysis is complete or your presentation is more clear.

If you don’t address the objection, your stakeholders may not appreciate or respect the work you’ve done in your analysis. By communicating respectfully with your stakeholders, you establish a positive relationship with them. You also can use their feedback to improve your analytical approach for future presentations.

Test your knowledge on caveats and limitations to data

TOTAL POINTS 3

Question 1

What is the technique that data analysts use to help them anticipate the questions a stakeholder might have during a Q&A?

  • Limitation test
  • Stakeholder brainstorm
  • Colleague test
  • Practice swing

Correct. A colleague test is an effective way to anticipate questions a stakeholder might have during a Q&A.

Question 2

You present to your stakeholders, and they express concern about how your results compare to previous results. Which kind of objection are they making?

  • Analysis
  • Findings
  • Data
  • Presentation skills

Correct. This stakeholder is making an objection about your findings.

Question 3

After your presentation, a stakeholder is concerned about whether your data comes from a reputable source. In what ways should you respond? Select all that apply.

  • Question why the stakeholder is concerned
  • Follow up with details about the source
  • Acknowledge that the objection is valid
  • Take steps to investigate the source further

Correct. When you receive an objection with merit, the best way to respond is by acknowledging its validity. Then, follow up with details and promise to investigate the matter further.

Test your knowledge on listening, responding, and including

TOTAL POINTS 3

Question 1

After you finish giving a presentation, an audience member asks your team for additional information on your topic. Your coworker is answering the question thoroughly, but you notice that the rest of your audience has tuned out. How can you re-engage your audience? Select all that apply.

  • Interrupt your coworker
  • Repeat the question
  • Redirect to a new question
  • Ask a question to the audience

Correct. If you notice your audience is losing interest, you can redirect to a new question or ask a question to your audience to re-engage them.

Question 2

You answer a question from an audience member, who then seems confused. You conclude that you didn’t understand the question. What should you have done differently to avoid the issue? Select all that apply.

  • Listened to the full question
  • Repeated the question to clarify
  • Elaborated more on the topic
  • Provided more context for their answer

Correct. In this scenario, two actions could have assisted you in answering the question: listen to the full question or repeat the question to clarify. These strategies can help you answer a question directly and completely.

Question 3

Your audience has several questions after your presentation, and you may not have enough time to answer them all. How should you proceed?

  • Involve the whole audience
  • Understand the context of each question
  • Repeat each question
  • Keep responses brief and follow up after the presentation

Correct. To answer more questions in less time, keep each response brief and to the point. This way, you answer a question directly and have more time to move onto the next one. After the Q&A, you can follow up with any questions that still need clarification.