Analyst Prep Kit
Why this belongs in an analysis portfolio
Half of an analyst's job is producing a number. The other half is explaining it to someone who will act on it and does not do this for a living.
The second half is harder to evidence in a portfolio. A dashboard shows I can build. It does not show whether I can make a finance manager understand why the denominator changed. This is what I have instead of taking that on faith.
The rules it is written under
Every page in it follows a written standard, which is itself the point. The ones that matter most:
| Rule | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| Write one level down | One idea per sentence, about fifteen words. Terms defined where they are used, never assumed |
| The reader can always orient | At any point on the page: why am I here, what is the idea, what do I do now |
| Make the reader produce something | They attempt it before the answer appears. Reading an answer is not learning it |
| One directive, always visible | What to do right now is on screen while scrolling, including on a phone |
| Give the whole thing away | The complete method, nothing held back for a paid version |
What building it taught me that transfers
Most explanations fail at the vocabulary, not the concept. People do not get stuck on what a join does. They get stuck because nobody told them what a key is, and were too far in to ask.
An instruction that cannot be followed is not an instruction. Watching people work through these taught me the difference between "check the settings" and "click the cell showing 0.19%, then right-click it". The second is longer and it is the only one that works.
Naming the fork before the work. Before any step whose purpose is not obvious, say what it decides: the question, the possible answers, and what would follow from each. That habit came out of teaching and it made my analysis write-ups better.