Ask Questions to Make Data-Driven Decisions
Core concepts
The Ask phase converts a vague business concern into a well-scoped question. Use SMART criteria: Specific, Measurable, Action-oriented, Relevant, and Time-bound. Vague asks like 'how are sales?' fail all five; 'which three regions had the largest month-over-month drop in units sold last quarter?' satisfies them.
Learn the six problem types and the question verbs tied to each:
- Making predictions - forecasting future values from historical data.
- Categorizing things - assigning items to groups using defined criteria.
- Spotting something unusual - finding outliers or anomalies.
- Identifying themes - grouping qualitative feedback into higher-level concepts.
- Discovering connections - linking two entities that share a challenge or characteristic.
- Finding patterns - detecting regularities in how something behaves over time.
Supporting skills include structured thinking (breaking a problem into manageable pieces), scope of work (SOW) documents, and stakeholder communication: stakeholders are people who invest interest, time, or resources in the project, and their expectations must be negotiated, not assumed.
Know the difference between a report (static, curated snapshot for a one-time need) and a dashboard (interactive, monitored continuously). Understand closed-ended versus open-ended questions and the risk of leading questions.
Traps
Exam items often describe a scenario and ask which problem type it is. Grouping free-text survey comments into themes is identifying themes, not categorizing things; a one-off briefing document is a report, not a dashboard.
Rule of thumb
Score a draft question against all five SMART letters. If any letter fails, rewrite before data collection begins - fixing scope later is expensive.