Analyst Interrogative #6
How are you going to use this data?
This series has investigated a number of important questions that good analysts should be asking. Prior articles have declared that certain questions are the among the most important. This article only makes that claim because if you provide direct client analytic support — this is the question you should be asking the most. How are you going to use this data?
And while How is always the most proper way to start your questions, for this one — you can also ask What? Put another way — What are you going to use this data for? — is just as good.
Ad Hoc Support
Many analysts engage in ad hoc support of their client base. Business partners shoot quick emails and drop by their cubes with seemingly harmless requests. Bill, can you give me a breakdown of the actives by demo segment? Far to often, the answer is sure! This is far too often a critical mistake! Sometimes the answer is why? Don’t waste your time with that line either. Far too often why is replied to with — I want to run them by John in sales.
Admittedly, John may still be used to get around the more pointed question on how the data will used. A little bit of consistency will quickly bring an end to even that. Your client or the primary requester of this data needs to tell you what they plan to do with it. Odds are they aren’t asking for the right data anyway…
Avoid Laziness
Just to be clear, if you consistently ask this question — it is going to take more time in your day. On the longer term it is going to save you, your clients, and your company a good deal of time and money. But on the short term, it is certainly easier to crank a quick distribution and make John happy. At least until he does something with the data that it wasn’t meant for…
Shouldn’t John know what data he needs?
No. And even if he often does, it rarely hurts to double check. If that seems paranoid, consider this question. If the clients mostly know what they want, How is it that the company hasn’t replaced you with a much cheaper reporting tool? How much value do you provide anyway? How are you avoiding the unemployment line? Or the less well formed — Who is the analyst around here anyway?
If your argument of choice is — I have better things to do with my time — I have a few more questions. How is that statement not apparent to John? If you don’t have the time to clarify that the requested data meets the intended need, how do you have the time to perform the request regardless? We can also return to the cheaper reporting question from before as well.
Preventing mistakes typically makes a bigger impact on the P&L than other competing analyst activities. Mistakes cost money. They cost time. The time and money wasted actually costs double because it could have been applied to other initiatives that would have created value. Triple — if the mistake requires additional work to fix it. In the analyst hierarchy, preventing major blunders ranks quiet high.
How are you going to use this data needs to be mandatory!
This question needs to be asked, consistently! It needs to be mandatory. It should also be emphasized to management. Don’t just ask it — make sure that the executives know you ask. Even better — get them to ask it, too. Did Bill review this data request to be sure we are looking at the right information? Hold people accountable and be clear exactly who gets paid to be the analyst. Otherwise the answer may soon be no one…
Thanks for reading! And stay tuned for the next installment of Analyst Interrogative… #7 Coming soon.
Analyst Interrogative is a series created by Corsair’s Institute to increase the reader’s understanding of the analytic process. For more articles like these — please subscribe to Comprehension 360.
