The report by Anaconda on — The State of Data Science 2020 — confirms the widely known fact, that Data Scientists spend almost half of their time not solving business problems but by cleansing and loading data.

This surely begs the question: why not invest at least half of what you invest in data science, on data management?

In this week’s blog, I’ll share three key data management investments which’ll make your data science initiatives successful:

#1 Improving data quality

#2 Defining a master data strategy

#3 Implementing data governance

Let’s dive into each of these:

#1 Improving data quality (the basics of data management)

Ideally, I’d quote a statistic which’d tell you just how many billions of dollars are being lost due to poor quality data.

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Charts, infographics, statistics, mean, median and bell curves! There is a lot of data and even more ways of presenting it. Don’t get lost in the trees by ignoring the woods.

Telling a story using data has never been easy. It requires one to process, organise and coherently present information.

More often than not, the entire presentation comes crumbling down at the first question from a knowledgeable person in the audience. The scenario also occurs when the “so-what?” of the story has not been answered.

When you have been working on a particular data story for too long, you may…

We often hear about Consulting as a prestigious career path, with top firms only recruiting the cream of the crop. And of course, these employees attend the “top target” universities where head-hunters cherry-pick them.

Suppose you have not been to the target university or achieved a specific university classification or picked the right university course itself. Do you still stand a chance of succeeding in Consulting?

The short answer to this question is “Yes”.

In this week’s post, I will be sharing my personal experience. …

Often marred with bureaucracy and red tape; Data Governance is a challenging feat to achieve in any organisation.

Unlike a data science or engineering initiative, Data Governance is effectively implementing business change.

Reluctance to change is not a new phenomenon. A journal published in 1948 entitled “Overcoming Resistance to Change” highlights how the different participation rates from factory workers created drastically different results in acceptance of the said change.

Even though the research goes back more than 70 years, the fundamental psychological traits of human beings stay the same.

So why does Data Governance often end up failing?

Here are my top 4 reasons:

#1 When…

A fad or a life-changing discipline? The obsession with data science is far from over. Dubbed the sexiest job of the 21st century by Harvard Business Review offers more than just sunshine and rainbows. By that, I of course mean, admiration and high salaries.

Is the hype justifiable though?

In this week’s blog, I’ll share three key reasons why the world is obsessed with data science:

#1 We have a lot more data now

#2 The tech giants depend on data science

#3 Data science is being used for social good

Let’s dive into each of these:

#1 We have a lot more data now (to apply data science techniques to…)

Google is now catering to over 40,000 searches per second. By the time you’ve read the first section of this…

But why is so much data being produced daily?

Let me help break this down. In this week’s blog, I’ll share three key reasons why we have an abundance of data in the world:

#1 World Wide Web Adoption

#2 Social Media Frenzy

#3 Internet of Things

Let’s dive into each of these

#1 World Wide Web Adoption

The world wide web as we know it has existed since the early 1990s.

However, the adoption had been centred mainly in the western and wealthier countries.

This changed when the big population countries started adopting digitisation.

Asia has 55% of the world’s population with the two most populous countries, China and India.

The graph below shows the dramatic increase in the adoption of internet usage in both of these countries.

This statement is profound as there’s an emphasis on understanding the problem, rather than solving it.

And many people face this major obstacle in their approach to problem-solving. There’s far too much of an expectation to solve the problem than there is in understanding it.

Fear not! Because, in this week’s blog, I want to share three easy steps on solving challenging problems:

#1 Don’t Panic! Just breakdown the mountain into small molehills

#2 Choose your molehills to overcome for a quick win

#3 Make sure your molehills are backed up with data

Let’s dive into each of these:

#1 Don’t Panic! Just breakdown the mountain into small molehills

The number of people that panic at the sight of a problem is by the bucketful.

It’s important to…

It’s a month of reflection, consciousness and humility. It’s also the month, where most Muslims give out generously in charity from their wealth.

As a Muslim Consultant, I’ve always appreciated this month, as it means that I’m focusing on other obligations than just work. It’s also a perfect time to take stock of the previous year.

I didn’t have my personal blog this time, last Ramadan. Hence, I wanted to take the opportunity to document the lessons I learnt by fasting for 30 days in Ramadan.

Here are the top three lessons I’ve learnt along the way:

#1 Higher purpose to life

#2 Blessings that are taken for granted

#3 Generosity…