Scribd
Upload
204 views

Art of Structured Thinking Analyzing

The document discusses the importance of structured thinking when analyzing problems. Poor structured thinking can lead to multiple iterations of work, changes in scope and direction, and mismatched expectations between the analyst and client. The article provides five tips for improving structured thinking: 1) Create a scope of work document using a business model canvas to define the problem. 2) Create a presentation laying out the planned analysis without looking at data to remove biases. 3) Perform quick calculations to prioritize areas of analysis and potential exclusions. 4) Define data requirements and hypotheses before assessing available data to avoid limiting ideas. 5) Practice these techniques frequently to improve structured thinking skills.

Uploaded by

Cayo Oliveira
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
204 views

Art of Structured Thinking Analyzing

The document discusses the importance of structured thinking when analyzing problems. Poor structured thinking can lead to multiple iterations of work, changes in scope and direction, and mismatched expectations between the analyst and client. The article provides five tips for improving structured thinking: 1) Create a scope of work document using a business model canvas to define the problem. 2) Create a presentation laying out the planned analysis without looking at data to remove biases. 3) Perform quick calculations to prioritize areas of analysis and potential exclusions. 4) Define data requirements and hypotheses before assessing available data to avoid limiting ideas. 5) Practice these techniques frequently to improve structured thinking skills.

Uploaded by

Cayo Oliveira
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 1

Art of structured thinking analyzing

Article written by Kunal Jain from Analytics Vidhya


Link: https://www.analyticsvidhya.com/blog/2013/06/art-structured-thinking-
analyzing/

Why is it important and how can it help?

How many times have you come across a situation when the entire work had to
be re-done because a particular segment was not excluded from data? Or a segment
was not included? Or just when you were about to finish the analysis, you come
across a factor you did not think off before? All these are results of poor
structured thinking.

Multiple iterations of work


Change of scope and work half way through
Longer turn around time
Difference in expectation between analyst and

1) Create a Scope of Work document

Use a business model canvas and the fill must be fast, 1-2 hour.

2) Create presentation and lay out the analysis without touching the data

You will be surprised to see the power of this technique. It might


sound counter-intuitive to people outside analytics industry, but this technique
helps you remove any biases and makes sure you think of all the aspects before you
zero in on any specific area.

3) Tiny calculations

Perform quick and dirty back of the envelope calculations to see if


some things should be analyzed first or can be removed.

4) Layout the data requirements and hypothesis before looking at what data is
available

If you layout these after looking at what is available, there is a high


chance that you restrict your thinking to those variables and data points which may
not bring out the best outcome.

5) Finally… practice, practice and practice

There is no point reading all this stuff, if you don’t apply it (too
bad that I am saying it so late)! The more you apply it, the better you will become
at it. Take any problem / business scenario, break it down on a piece of paper, see
how things add up. How much profit or loss can you expect from a strategy change?
What is the most critical factor? What assumptions need to hold out in order to
make profits? Just apply structure to any problem you come across and see the fun.
In matter of hours, you might know more than the owner of the problem.

You might also like