Data Detectives

What is a Data Detective?

In my experience, what really sets data practictioners apart is data intuition, the ability to think about relevant and important questions, to understand where to get the data to answer those questions, and importantly, to use that data well. Nuances of the data generating process can make or break an analysis, and a data detective has to understand the end-to-end modeling process to uncover impactful findings. A data detective, then, is a data practictioner who has not only the skills but also the intuition to, in a nod to Sherlock Holmes, "eliminate the impossible, [so that] whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"; whatever analysis or model they produce, then, will have a significant impact on their area of investigation.