What are the best ways to develop data skills in a non-data role?

1 Identify your data goals

Before you dive into learning data skills, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve with them. Do you want to improve your decision making, communicate better with data, automate some tasks, or explore new opportunities? Think about how data can help you solve specific problems or challenges in your role, and what kind of data skills you need to do that. For example, if you want to create engaging reports and dashboards, you might need to learn some data visualization tools and techniques. If you want to automate repetitive tasks, you might need to learn some scripting languages and tools.

2 Find relevant resources

When you have your data goals in mind, you can search for resources to help you learn and practice data skills. There are various online courses, books, podcasts, blogs, and communities that offer data education at different levels and domains. You can also ask your colleagues, mentors, or managers for suggestions or feedback on the resources you find. When choosing a resource, there are several factors to consider such as the quality and credibility of the content and the instructor, how well it aligns with your data goals and role, the format and duration of the learning experience, as well as the cost and accessibility of the resource.

3 Learn by doing

The best way to develop data skills is to apply them to real-world scenarios and projects. You can start by looking for data sources and questions that are relevant to your role and your industry. For example, you can use data from your own company, your customers, your competitors, or your market. You can also look for public data sets or open source projects that interest you. Then, you can use the tools and techniques you learned from the resources to analyze, visualize, or manipulate the data. You can also document your process, findings, and insights in a portfolio or a blog.

4 Seek feedback and support

Learning data skills can be both challenging and rewarding, however you don't have to do it alone. You can gain feedback and support from your peers, mentors, managers, or instructors. Additionally, you can join online or offline communities of data enthusiasts, learners, or professionals. This will help you improve your data skills and knowledge by getting constructive criticism and advice. It will also help to keep you motivated and accountable by sharing your progress and challenges. Moreover, it is a great way to network and collaborate with other data-minded people who share your interests or goals. Finally, it is a great way to discover new opportunities and trends in the data field.