After identification of the right question(s) for a business analytics problem, the next step is to identify the right data and variables to work with.

“Assume you want to build a model to predict job satisfaction for employees. In any human resources system, the easily available and highly quantifiable metrics are income, bonus, levels, promotions, etc. But we all know from our experience that job satisfaction is a highly complicated phenomenon and can barely be predicted with just these variables. However, when one builds this model there is a greater temptation to just use the easily available variables. The ability to identify the right set of variables at the beginning of the project differentiates a good analyst from the rest. Identification of variables requires a good understanding of the domain and lots of creativity. Creativity helps in generating derived variables from the available data in the business systems.”

– Roopam Upadhyay    May 2, 2016