VIDEO TRANSCRIPT Interpret and Communicate Data Analysis Results ID: 02-VIDEO-538cb508dd7d03bc8b9c101c This video discusses how to interpret data analysis results to reach conclusions. The video addresses the following: how this applies to you, how data is utilized in the workplace for making more informed decisions, and why this information is important. RECORDED ON Jun 06, 2014 COPYRIGHT 2014 TAGS QNT/275, Time Series, Interpret data, communicate data analysis results, Statistics University of Phoenix 2014 When you start off with a project, the one thing you're going to have is a mountain of data and the first thing that you have to do is understand the parameters of what you have. And that requires interviews and talking to the people who manage the data. It's going to be middle managers, IT people, if you just go out and talk to people, you'll understand much better what the data you have represents. The next step is scrubbing that data. And this is a term that's fairly new to a lot of people, but what we're talking about is going in and testing it, to make sure it's accurate and if it's not, making it accurate. The third step is then going to be, doing the analysis. This is kind of a get to know you phase of the relationship with your data. And then once you have all of that information and once you are intimately familiar with the data, then your last step is going to actually be coming to conclusions and figuring out how to present those conclusions to your clients. When you get to the point where you're done with your analysis and you are ready to present to the decision maker, one of the important things to remember is that most decision makers in business and in law, and in medicine, are people who are used to being quoted. They are used to reading in sound bytes, they are used to getting little snippets and essentially having that, make up their mind for them. Having a powerful conclusion, that is concise and accurately represents your research, is key to success in this field. Most often, you're settling a dispute inside the company. You have one group of really experienced, intelligent people who think the company should go one direction, another group that things they should go another direction, and they hired a consultant to essentially figure out which way they need to go. Early on in my career, we were working for a company, it was a largeone of the largest companies in America. The project that I had been assigned to, was to take a look at their press releases and their internal forecast, to determine whether or not they were reporting everything correctly. How they should be report it, and they had an uncanny ability to forecast their earnings. In fact, they had forecast their earnings perfectly, every single quarter for seven years. Comparing that to the rest of their industry, the probability of them being able to do that, was the equivalent of winning 28 hands of Black Jack in a row in Vegas. It was literally almost impossible for them to be that accurate. We took that analysis, we dug into it a little bit deeper and we thought we found the causes of it. It looked like there were a few things that might have been construed as management, as earnings management, where they were looking ahead to stuff that had already happened, or pushing their revenue out into other quarters. When we took that to management and presented that to the CEO and the President of the Board, it was I think, almost accusatory to them. And they felt threatened by it and they absolutely shut us down. And they refused to discuss it with us and we were in danger of getting fired, all because we had done a very bad job of presenting what we thought were valid conclusions, to the decision makers. And so understand that the way you present your conclusions, will ultimately determine much more than just the direction of a company, but even going as far as the viability of the company in the long run. I will say that, to compare it to a final exam, a final project presentation, any of the things that you have done in college, it is similar to that feeling. That kind of, you know, almost like there's a little knot or a little rock sitting in your chest. But, in a situation where you're presenting this and it all comes down to you, it's not a letter grade anymore and when it goes well, you come out of there feeling elated. When it goes poorly, it leads to some pretty dark days and some pretty extreme soul searching. But it's an incredible sensation, it's an incredible roller coaster and frankly, I don't know why everyone in the world doesn't try and do this kind of work, it's that much fun. Interpret and Communicate Data Analysis Results Page 1 VIDEO TRANSCRIPT Interpret and Communicate Data Analysis Results ID: 02-VIDEO-538cb508dd7d03bc8b9c101c This video discusses how to interpret data analysis results to reach conclusions. The video addresses the following: how this applies to you, how data is utilized in the workplace for making more informed decisions, and why this information is important. RECORDED ON Jun 06, 2014 COPYRIGHT 2014 TAGS QNT/275, Time Series, Interpret data, communicate data analysis results, Statistics University of Phoenix 2014 When you start off with a project, the one thing you're going to have is a mountain of data and the first thing that you have to do is understand the parameters of what you have. And that requires interviews and talking to the people who manage the data. It's going to be middle managers, IT people, if you just go out and talk to people, you'll understand much better what the data you have represents. The next step is scrubbing that data. And this is a term that's fairly new to a lot of people, but what we're talking about is going in and testing it, to make sure it's accurate and if it's not, making it accurate. The third step is then going to be, doing the analysis. This is kind of a get to know you phase of the relationship with your data. And then once you have all of that information and once you are intimately familiar with the data, then your last step is going to actually be coming to conclusions and figuring out how to present those conclusions to your clients. When you get to the point where you're done with your analysis and you are ready to present to the decision maker, one of the important things to remember is that most decision makers in business and in law, and in medicine, are people who are used to being quoted. They are used to reading in sound bytes, they are used to getting little snippets and essentially having that, make up their mind for them. Having a powerful conclusion, that is concise and accurately represents your research, is key to success in this field. Most often, you're settling a dispute inside the company. You have one group of really experienced, intelligent people who think the company should go one direction, another group that things they should go another direction, and they hired a consultant to essentially figure out which way they need to go. Early on in my career, we were working for a company, it was a largeone of the largest companies in America. The project that I had been assigned to, was to take a look at their press releases and their internal forecast, to determine whether or not they were reporting everything correctly. How they should be report it, and they had an uncanny ability to forecast their earnings. In fact, they had forecast their earnings perfectly, every single quarter for seven years. Comparing that to the rest of their industry, the probability of them being able to do that, was the equivalent of winning 28 hands of Black Jack in a row in Vegas. It was literally almost impossible for them to be that accurate. We took that analysis, we dug into it a little bit deeper and we thought we found the causes of it. It looked like there were a few things that might have been construed as management, as earnings management, where they were looking ahead to stuff that had already happened, or pushing their revenue out into other quarters. When we took that to management and presented that to the CEO and the President of the Board, it was I think, almost accusatory to them. And they felt threatened by it and they absolutely shut us down. And they refused to discuss it with us and we were in danger of getting fired, all because we had done a very bad job of presenting what we thought were valid conclusions, to the decision makers. And so understand that the way you present your conclusions, will ultimately determine much more than just the direction of a company, but even going as far as the viability of the company in the long run. I will say that, to compare it to a final exam, a final project presentation, any of the things that you have done in college, it is similar to that feeling. That kind of, you know, almost like there's a little knot or a little rock sitting in your chest. But, in a situation where you're presenting this and it all comes down to you, it's not a letter grade anymore and when it goes well, you come out of there feeling elated. When it goes poorly, it leads to some pretty dark days and some pretty extreme soul searching. But it's an incredible sensation, it's an incredible roller coaster and frankly, I don't know why everyone in the world doesn't try and do this kind of work, it's that much fun. Interpret and Communicate Data Analysis Results Page 1