Data Literacy in Practice: A complete guide to data literacy and making smarter decisions with data through intelligent actions

Accelerate your journey to smarter decision making by mastering the fundamentals of data literacy and developing the mindset to work confidently with data

Key Features

• Get a solid grasp of data literacy fundamentals to support your next steps in your career
• Learn how to work with data and extract meaningful insights to take the right actions
• Apply your knowledge to real-world business intelligence projects

Book Description

Data is more than a mere commodity in our digital world. It is the ebb and flow of our modern existence. Individuals, teams, and enterprises working with data can unlock a new realm of possibilities. And the resultant agility, growth, and inevitable success have one origin—data literacy.

This comprehensive guide is written by two data literacy pioneers, each with a thorough footprint within the data and analytics commercial world and lectures at top universities in the US and the Netherlands. Complete with best practices, practical models, and real-world examples, Data Literacy in Practice will help you start making your data work for you by building your understanding of data literacy basics and accelerating your journey to independently uncovering insights.

You'll learn the four-pillar model that underpins all data and analytics and explore concepts such as measuring data quality, setting up a pragmatic data management environment, choosing the right graphs for your readers, and questioning your insights.

By the end of the book, you'll be equipped with a combination of skills and mindset as well as with tools and frameworks that will allow you to find insights and meaning within your data for data-informed decision making.

What you will learn

• Start your data literacy journey with simple and actionable steps
• Apply the four-pillar model for organizations to transform data into insights
• Discover which skills you need to work confidently with data
• Visualize data and create compelling visual data stories
• Measure, improve, and leverage your data to meet organizational goals
• Master the process of drawing insights, ask critical questions and action your insights
• Discover the right steps to take when you analyze insights

Who this book is for

This book is for data analysts, data professionals, and data teams starting or wanting to accelerate their data literacy journey. If you're looking to develop the skills and mindset you need to work independently with data, as well as a solid knowledge base of the tools and frameworks, you'll find this book useful.

Table of Contents

1. The Beginning- The Flow of Data
2. Unfolding Your Data Journey
3. Understanding the Four-Pillar Model
4. Implementing Organizational Data Literacy
5. Managing Your Data Environment
6. Aligning with Organizational Goals
7. Designing Dashboards and Reports
8. Questioning the Data
9. Handling Data Responsibly
10. Turning Insights into Decisions
11. Defining a Data Literacy Competency Framework
12. Assessing Your Data Literacy Maturity
13. Managing Data and Analytics Projects
14. Appendix A – Templates
15. Appendix B – References

Angelika is a highly skilled denizen of the Data world. As operations manager for several organizations, strategic advisor and Data Literacy evangelist, she is able to analyze BI & Analytics environments expertly, map the ambitions of organizations and deliver cutting-edge advice to help organizations mature their data use. Inspiring organizations and people to grow in Business Intelligence & Analytics maturity is her passion. In addition to teaching at the University of Applied Sciences in Amsterdam, where she spreads her knowledge and passion to her Data & Analytics students

Kevin has helped individuals and organizations maximize the value they receive from their data for over 20 years. He is a is a frequent speaker and thought leader on topics including data literacy, data-informed decision making, decision intelligence, and essential skills for today's workforce. He is currently the Chief Learning Officer at Qlik, a data and analytics company, as well as the chair of the advisory board for The Data Literacy Project. Kevin is also an accomplished author of multiple books, including Turning Data into Wisdom, which helps individuals learn strategies to make data-informed decisions. He applies his passion both in the corporate setting and also in academia where he is an adjust professor at Boise State University.