Types of Analytics (Descriptive, Diagnostic, Predictive, Prescriptive)

Summary

Descriptive answers 'what happened', diagnostic answers 'why it happened', predictive answers 'what will happen', and prescriptive answers 'what should we do' — most analyst work lives in the first two.

How to Learn This

1Classify 4 real reports or dashboards you've seen into these categories.
2Notice how much value comes from just doing descriptive and diagnostic well.
3Learn why prescriptive analytics usually needs much more mature data infrastructure.

The Data Analytics Lifecycle

Data-Driven Decision Making

More topics in Data Analytics Foundations

What Data Analysts Actually Do Data Analyst vs Data Scientist vs Data Engineer The Data Analytics Lifecycle Data-Driven Decision Making Common Industries & Domains for Analysts A Day in the Life of a Data Analyst The Data Analyst Career Ladder Key Tools Overview (Excel, SQL, BI, Python)

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