Course Overview for the Predictive Business Analytics Certificate, Northwestern University School of Professional Studies - Northwestern School of Professional Studies

Program Courses

To limit our community's exposure to COVID-19, the spring quarter will now commence on April 4. Online courses may have adjusted dates, but will otherwise run as usual. On-campus courses will be conducted remotely until April 27; University leaders will decide by April 17 whether to continue remote teaching or to return to in-person instruction on April 27. Updated information for affected courses can be found in the scheduling notes area under the course description.

BUS_ANLY 204-DL : Data Visualization, Communication, and Storytelling

Description

This course is designed to empower professionals with the skills to integrate business analytics into their organization’s decision-making processes, enhancing competitive advantage and value creation. Tailored for individuals who are not data scientists but need to effectively consume and communicate data and analytics, this course covers essential topics including promoting analytical thinking, building consensus, and adopting smart metrics for project development, implementation, evaluation, and monitoring.

A strong emphasis is placed on the visual display of data and the effective communication of complex analytical results to diverse audiences, including clients, staff, non-technical leaders, and senior management. Participants will explore various dashboarding and graphics technologies and will work with real-world examples from industries such as finance, healthcare, retail, government, marketing, and sales.

Students will gain hands-on experience in making the case for analytics, presenting their findings, and demonstrating the added value and competitive edge derived from their insights. Each student will receive a 3-month license for Tableau, the leading platform for data exploration and management, featuring generative AI capabilities for accelerated value and reduced repetitive tasks. Upon expiration, the license can be renewed at the student rate for an additional year.

Course Objectives

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

• Formulate data profiles and generate thoughtful actionable insights.
• Summarize complex analytical results into simple, encompassing, and convincing visual analytics.
• Create presentations for delivery to a mixed technical and non-technical audience.
• Create effective visualizations using best practices and synthesize them into illuminating stories.
• Illustrate the comprehension of data storytelling through the sharing of a video story with the class.

Additional Information:

Prerequisites

There are no prerequisites for this course. This course assumes a basic understanding of Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint or similar programs as a basis for navigating Tableau.

Students can take this course out of sequence (before completing BUS_ANLY 201 and 202).