Online Program

Best Practice: The Data Analysis Plan—A Blueprint for Success (302956)

Keywords: Data Analysis Plans, Best Practice, Communication

Just as an architect creates a blueprint to guide the building of a house, the data analyst uses a data analysis plan to plan, guide, and present methods for testing hypotheses and understanding patterns in data. Although some industries require a formal written data analysis plan, a plan is not necessarily required for most consulting applied statisticians. The purpose of this presentation is to introduce this tool to such analysts who may not have adopted this tool as a best practice. Adoption of this tool as a best practice can help to control client expectations by clarifying from the beginning what will and will not be done. This method also helps to avoid the problem with analyses that never seems to end. In this presentation, a template of a plan will be reviewed that can be modified and adapted for individual use. The talk emphasizes the importance of establishing standards and conventions, as well as defining statistical parameters before discussing specific analyses with the client. Once this foundation is agreed upon, the plan is then written to frame the questions and detail the analysis. The document is reviewed with the client and then implemented.