Effective Analysis Practices

Effective Analysis core practices are basically guidelines and recommendations, which, if applied correctly, help increase the efficiency of analytical work and readability of the analytical outputs that together lower frustration of people on projects. They are intentionally not called "best practices" as every practice has advantages and disadvantages, and therefore there is no silver bullet which could guarantee success on every project:

There are no rules, just good practices

"One size doesn't fit all", and the specific techniques and approaches must be selected according to the needs of the particular activity. However, there still are core principles that every analyst should be aware of in order to be more effective and to produce quality outputs.

The goal of this chapter is to provide analysts with a framework. It does not list dozens of techniques and the advice to "choose according to your needs". Instead, it presents what works in specific situations across our industry.