Online Program

Communication in Statistical Collaborations: Creating Shared Understanding (304135)

Keywords: statistical consulting, career development, leadership, professional skills

Collaboration skills are essential for success as a statistician or data scientist. In this talk I explore with the audience how to create shared understanding about the statistical and domain aspects of a collaboration project by harnessing the concept of “common knowledge.” Common knowledge is a special kind of shared understanding of information within a group such that each person in the group knows that everyone else knows that everyone knows … this information. This talk will highlight the benefits for statistical practice of creating shared understanding and will detail practical communication tips for achieving it. Such tips include how to ask great questions to elicit information; how to listen, paraphrase, and summarize to hear, clarify, and solidify this information; and how to effectively explain statistical concepts to non-statisticians. The takeaway messages for participants in this session should be: creating shared understanding will make me a more effective statistician and here’s how I can create shared understanding with customers, colleagues, and collaborators.