The Makings of a Great Business Intelligence Analyst

The makings of a great business intelligence analyst

March 2013

What does it take to be a great business intelligence analyst?

If you think it’s someone who just crunches numbers, then

you’re missing the big picture.

Great analysts = Great information explorationists.

These are folks who collect, analyze, and synthesize information and find the story

behind the numbers and information.

They find new ways to connect sometimes dissociate facts so they converge and

make sense.

So what makes for a great information explorationist?

Let’s look at their top attributes.

Structural thinking

• Ability to visualize in three dimensions.• Ability to visualize results to facilitate

meaningful and easy understanding by differing target audiences of execs, management, and peers.

Inductive reasoning• The ability to sense a unifying

principle running through miscellany or a gift for synthesis as compared to analysis.

Ability to go from specific to general.

A gift for diagnosing, critiquing, evaluating, and decision-making.

• Seems almost like intuition but is really high cognitive speed to process information.

• Ability to go from “what is” to “what could be.”

Analytical reasoning

• The ability to organize ideas and concepts without the use of exhaustive, step-by-step instructions.

Including finding new ways to organize data. E.g., recognizing a new tree species in the forest.

• Involves logic and organization.

Numerical aptitudes• Number series aptitudes: The ability to see

meaning in numbers. Pattern recognition.

• Numbers facility: The ability to do arithmetic quickly and accurately.

• Number memory: The ability to memorize and remember a string of numbers.

Communication

• The ability to clearly articulate findings to target audiences of execs, management, and peers.

• Includes the ability to segment messaging for different target audiences.

Eg., execs & management want strategic insights while peers seek creative or process improvement insight.

Who?

For other clients, she defines technology requirements that will heighten business effectiveness.

Kathy Herrmann builds better businesses.

She propels businesses as a T-shaped pro with vertical penetration in diverse types of data analysis and horizontal experience in marketing, sales, customer service, and operations.

For some clients, she improves business performance by providing results-focused data insights into customer activity and behaviors, or into operational activities.

Kathy Herrmann

571-236-7929info@kathyherrmann.com www.kathyherrmann.com

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