This course has passed.

Overview

Increasingly public sector organisations are turning to statistics to help drive performance, improve decision making and deliver better services. Within this growing dependency on statistics, there is an increasing need for more professionals to be able to think in a more statistical way.

By attending this Understanding Statistical Analysis course, with statistician Alex Bottle, you will be able to mitigate risk when making decisions; confidently analyse data reports and develop effective forecasting strategies.

This course gives professionals with a limited understanding of statistics, the confidence to make more effective decisions, based on statistical reports produced by analysts and researchers.

Through using excel, you will learn how to put statistical theory into practice, which will give you the confidence to use statistics back in the workplace.

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Learning Outcomes

  • Understanding how you can analyse statistics to improve the performance of your organisation
  • Learn how to apply statistics in your organisation
  • Understand basic statistical terms
  • Learn how to effectively forecast to help make more effective business decisions
  • Examine trends that may impact your organisation

In-House Option

Hello

Agenda

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9:15 - 9:45

Registration

09:45 - 10:00

Trainer's Welcome & Clarification of Learning Objectives

Main concepts to be covered during the day are:

  • Types of data and common distributions
  • Measuring and understanding variation
  • Trends and prediction
10:00 - 10:45

First Steps: Some Basic Statistical Terms

  • What is statistical thinking and why does it matter?
  • Types and examples of quantitative data: continuous, categorical, count
  • Some common distributions in the real world, e.g., normal, bimodal, uniform, skewed
  • When averages are misleading
  • Key terms such as mean, mode, median, percentile, standard deviation, range, ratio, probability and risk, odds, accuracy vs precision
10:45 - 11:00

Morning Break

11:00 - 12:00

Understanding Variation 1: Describing Variation and Randomness

  • Quantifying variation
  • What is randomness? Why and when is it a problem
  • Exercise: quick demo of randomness in action
  • The role of chance and how to assess it (hypothesis testing)
  • Exercise on assessing how much variation exists between units
12:00 - 13:00

Understanding Variation 2: Sampling Strategies and Bias

  • Options for surveying customers and staff: sampling strategies
  • Measurement error and precarious data
  • Exercise: how satisfied are my customers?
13:00 - 14:00

Lunch

14:00 - 14:45

Associations and Trends

  • Correlation vs causation
  • The linear trend: concept of least squares and choosing line of best fit
  • Types of trends: linear, exponential rise or fall, step change, seasonal, other non-linear
  • Exercise: what’s the trend here?
14:45 - 15:00

Afternoon Break

15:00 - 16:00

Forecasting and Getting it Wrong

  • Extrapolating from a linear trend
  • Measures of prediction uncertainty
  • Group discussion: why do forecasts go wrong? How can we reduce the risk of this happening?
  • Overcome common cognitive biases
  • Exercise on putting it all together: which team deserves a bonus?
16:00 - 16:15

Feedback, Evaluation & Close