Questions to Ask Your Data Scientists

(And questions they should ask you)  Crucially this is not about recruiting, but to make sure you are managing them to get value from proposed solutions.   Management and data scientists should know the process, data, and value expectations.   Too often they don't

Better Questions to Ask Your Data Scientists
by Michael Li, Madina Kassengaliyeva and Raymond Perkins

The intersection of big data and business is growing daily. Although enterprises have been studying analytics for decades, data science is a relatively new capability. And interacting in a new data-driven culture can be difficult, particularly for those who aren’t data experts.

One particular challenge that many of these individuals face is how to request new data or analytics from data scientists. They don’t know the right questions to ask, the correct terms to use, or the range of factors to consider to get the information they need. In the end, analysts are left uncertain about how to proceed, and managers are frustrated when the information they get isn’t what they intended.

At The Data Incubator, we work with hundreds of companies looking to hire data scientists and data engineers or enroll their employees in our corporate training programs. We often field questions from our hiring and training clients about how to interact with their data experts. While it’s impossible to give an exhaustive account, here are some important factors to think about when communicating with data scientists, particularly as you begin a data search. .... "