In our day-to-day life, whether official, personal, or social, we have to deal with complications. Some situations are easy to handle, bu...
In our day-to-day life, whether official, personal, or social, we have to deal with complications. Some situations are easy to handle, but others are complex and can snatch the peace of mind because our brain gets stuck on how best to handle such states of affairs. This is where our Analytical Skills help us. The prime purpose of analyzing any given situation is to understand the root cause(s) of the issue, forecast the impact, and plan a corrective/preventive actions strategy. So, basically, analytical skill is about visualizing a given situation, task, project, or issue from several angles to break it down into smaller steps. To visualize data, what could be a better tool than Tableau? Opting for Tableau training could be a great option to gain analytical skills.
Below are different situations where our analytical skills are required. I shall give advice in each category accordingly:
When Summarizing Large Amounts of Data:
In this situation, I highly recommend using the Pivot Tables feature of MS Excel to generate reports. The Pivot Reports feature allows us to play with the data in several ways to generate multi-dimensional reports. We can break down large amounts of data into different sheets to apply Pivot Reports separately as well. YouTube is a very good source of videos for learning this skill. Pivot tables can also generate reports for Trends and Forecasts in two to three dimensions.When Resolving Conflicts in Office:
In this case, listen to all parties who have differences of opinion. List down the positive and negative input factors and after-effects based on feedback from individuals. Make it in tabular format and review this with your manager to see which option is the best to go for. Then call for a meeting to elaborate on the overall picture based on your fair analysis and convince personnel of the option which is in the best interest of the company.When Being Assigned a Large Project:
In this case, you need to make a high-level agenda (High-Level Project Deliverables) and then start working on WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) and then assign each task to the relevant resource. While making WBS, you can have a meeting with your Team Leads and other stakeholders. You can consider a Fishbone diagram to analyze the inputs of any task.When Resolving a Technical Issue:
The advice here is to consult the product guide to see the possible root causes, consult the SME (Subject Matter Expert) for opinions, or consult the Lessons Learned Register. For all kinds of issue resolutions, I always recommend two things: First, take corrective action to fix the issue; Second, take preventive action (fix the root cause permanently) so that the issue does not pop up again. Six Sigma's DMAIC is another recommended way for analyzing and improving. You may want to get Six Sigma documents by dropping me an email at mjunaidtahir-at-gmail-dot-com.When Purchasing Something:
Let us take the example of a mobile phone. When you want to purchase a new mobile, you need to ask yourself: Do I need a touchscreen? Do I need Wi-Fi? Do I really need to purchase a new mobile? What is my budget? Do I need a 5MP camera? Do I need an iPhone or Android? Do I need a 4-inch screen or less? What other specs do I need to consider? So basically, you are analyzing your demands to come up with the right mobile to be purchased.When Handling Family Conflicts:
Being a sensitive subject, this is something where you need much more than analytical skills. For each family member involved in the conflict, you have to have a sense of feelings, emotion study, stress absorption power, age factor, relationship level, and convincing power. So, in my opinion, this is the most difficult part of practicing your analytical skills. You have to consistently guide everyone about the 'forgive and forget' policy. You have to calmly listen to each party and take adequate time to analyze all aspects (as mentioned a couple of lines back) vigilantly before concluding something on the brawl.
Conclusion: Analytical skills can make your life easier in almost all aspects of decision-making or problem-solving. However, it's not only a matter of considering all the options and the inputs, but it's also a matter of considering the weight of each option as well. For example, for a given situation, you have two options with equal numbers of advantages or disadvantages. In order to conclude in such a situation, you have to consider the weight of each option. While doing your analysis, you might want to consider the difference between urgent and important things.
Develop and sharpen your analytical skills to take steps for reducing stress in your life, consequently ensuring peace of mind
