Reflections: My first data role as a Business Intelligence Analyst
- Janne Lemettinen
- Nov 26, 2024
- 4 min read
As I reflect on my journey as a Business Intelligence Analyst, I feel incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to transition from my B2B sales experience into the data world. Transitioning into the data field is no easy task and finding that first role is always a challenge. I took a leap into the world of data, armed with self-taught skills and certifications. At this moment, I feel very lucky to be able to write down these reflections. My deepest thanks go to the incredible people I had the honor of working with —real experts and heroes- in the data field who generously shared their knowledge and made my learning journey much faster.
This role was a significant stepping stone in my career and I hope to capture some of my initial learnings here. It’s worth noting that this reflection is written quite soon after my experience, so I’m sure some of the most valuable lessons will become clearer over time. This position offered me the chance to develop valuable technical skills, refine my problem-solving abilities, and gain a deeper understanding of how data can transform business operations. Additionally, I gained great insights into how data projects are executed using agile methods.
The Role
As a Business Intelligence Analyst in the transportation industry, my role was focused on providing actionable insights and helping stakeholders make informed decisions. I worked closely with cross-functional teams to understand the data needs of stakeholders, using various BI tools to meet those needs. My responsibilities were rooted in understanding business needs, transforming data into usable information, and building tools to improve organizational outcomes.
Key responsibilities included:
Data Modeling and Report Development: Using Power BI, I created interactive reports and data models that simplified complex datasets and delivered clear insights.
Stakeholder Collaboration: Partnered with internal stakeholders to identify requirements, solve specific business challenges, and tailor data solutions to met their needs.
Power BI Environment Management: Ensuring a secure and well-structured data environment. I administered Power BI, managed access and developed the Power BI environment more user-friendly directions.
Ad-Hoc Analysis: I provided insights into specific business questions, addressing a variety of topics such as analyzing power outages on the railway, tracking train counts by station, and providing new measures, perspectives on HR-data from different point of view.
Encouraging Data-Driven Culture: Providing resources to enable data-driven culture such as report catalog, user manuals and offering a clear contact point for data questions.
Process Optimization: Collaborating with consultants and data team members to ensure process were going smoothly.
A Day in the Life
Working in an agile team brought structure to my day-to-day activities while providing flexibility to adapt to changing priorities.
Daily Standups (9:15 AM): Our team began each day with a standup to align on progress, share updates, and address challenges.
Task Management with Jira: Using Jira, I tracked tasks, created new tasks, updated business needs, monitored progress, and ensured alignment with team goals.
Documentation in Confluence: Confluence was our go-to platform for documenting processes and data requirements. This was actually very useful tool and it helps to create guidelines in the projects.
Weekly and Monthly Planning: Weekly planning sessions helped prioritize tasks, while monthly backlog refinements ensured our work aligned with long-term business objectives.
This agile approach enabled us to stay focused, maintain transparency, and adapt to changing demands efficiently. Sometimes maybe even too efficiently.
The Skills and Technologies
This role offered a solid foundation in the tools and techniques essential for succeeding in the data field. Key technical skills I gained included:
Power BI: Creating dashboards, managing the environment, and transforming raw data into actionable insights.
SQL & DAX: Querying and analyzing data, writing efficient calculations, and building measures for reports.
Snowflake: Leveraged Snowflake to explore data, perform quick analyses with SQL, and understand the structure of data warehouses, including the location and purpose of various tables.
Jira and Confluence: Managing tasks and maintaining clear documentation to streamline workflows.
Beyond technical skills, I developed an ability to navigate complex problems, collaborate effectively with stakeholders, and stay focused on delivering business value.
The Team: Collaboration at Its Best
A key highlight of this role was working within a supportive and collaborative team environment. My team included, head of analytics, data architect, data scientist and BI-specialist. While I focused on analytics and reporting, success relied heavily on cross-functional teamwork, information sharing and active collaboration.
Consultants:
Data Engineers ensured the availability and quality of data.
BI developers provided expertise to guide and optimize strategies.
Stakeholders:
Business Stakeholders shared insights into their specific challenges, helping to shape the solutions we delivered.
Working in this collaborative environment helped build a strong sense of teamwork. It taught me how important it is to communicate clearly, stay flexible, and ensure that our efforts were aligned with overall business objectives.
Lessons Learned
Looking back, I am incredibly grateful for this opportunity. It was a steep learning curve, but it prepared me for future challenges in the data field. Key takeaways include:
Adaptability: Transitioning from sales to data analytics required embracing new tools and techniques while staying open to learning.
Problem-Solving: Whether it was debugging data errors or addressing stakeholder needs, problem-solving was central to my daily work.
Promoting Data Culture: Building a data-driven mindset across the organization was a big challenge and every interactions is meaningful. Active listening.
Looking Ahead
My first job as a Business Intelligence Analyst was more than just a career milestone. It was the culmination of hard work and self-driven learning. It provided invaluable lessons, not just in the technical and analytical aspects of the role, but also through the collaboration and insights I gained from the talented professionals I had the privilege of working with.
This experience has shaped my approach to solving business challenges and strengthened my passion for the world of data analytics.
I’m excited about the new opportunity ahead and look forward to continuing my learning and development journey.
Thank you to everyone who supported me along the way. I am truly grateful and hopefully I can help someone in the future. This was an incredible experience, and I hope our paths cross again in the future!
