Data Analytics Life Cycle
Data Analytics Life Cycle
Phase 1—Discovery
• The team learns the business domain, including relevant history such
  as whether the organization or business unit has attempted similar
  projects in the past from which they can learn.
• The team assesses the resources available to support the project in
  terms of people, technology, time, and data.
• Important activities in this phase include
   • framing the business problem as an analytics challenge that can be addressed
     in subsequent phases and
   • formulating initial hypotheses to test and begin learning the data.
Phase 2—Data preparation
• Phase 2 requires the presence of an analytic sandbox, in which the team
  can work with data and perform analytics for the duration of the project.
• The team needs to execute
   • extract, load, and transform (ELT) or
   • extract, transform and load (ETL) to get data into the sandbox.
• The ELT and ETL are sometimes abbreviated as ETLT.
• Data should be transformed in the ETLT process so the team can work with
  it and analyze it.
• In this phase, the team also needs to familiarize itself with the data
  thoroughly and take steps to condition the data
Phase 3—Model planning
• The team determines the methods, techniques, and workflow it
  intends to follow for the subsequent model building phase.
• The team explores the data
  • to learn about the relationships between variables and
  • subsequently selects key variables and the most suitable models.
Phase 4—Model building
• The team develops datasets for testing, training, and production
  purposes.
• The team builds and executes models based on the work done in the
  model planning phase.
• The team also considers whether
   • its existing tools will suffice for running the models, or
   • if it will need a more robust environment for executing models and workflows
     (for example, fast hardware and parallel processing, if applicable).
Phase 5—Communicate results
• The team, in collaboration with major stakeholders,
   • determines if the results of the project are a success or a failure based on the
     criteria developed in Phase 1.
   • The team should
      •   identify key findings
      •   quantify the business value
      •   develop a narrative to summarize
      •   convey findings to stakeholders.
Phase 6—Operationalize
• The team delivers final reports, briefings, code, and technical
  documents.
• Also, the team may run a pilot project to implement the models in a
  production environment.