PSDA 2018 - “Proposed Standards on Definitions of Analytics Roles, Skill-sets and Career Paths in the Data Science Industry” Workshop​

As the role of data and analytics is expanding very rapidly in creating new business models or changing existing ones, demand for analytics professionals is growing at an increasing rate. However, almost every company in the industry has a unique way of defining roles and assigning titles in data analytics related positions. For any given role or title, such as ‘Data Scientist’ or ‘Data Mining Manager’, a variety of role definitions, expected hard and soft skills, expected level of experience, level in the organization, or career development plan including training can be seen. This creates inefficiencies and makes it difficult for companies to find the right match for a given position, leverage analytics skills effectively and retain talent. It also makes it hard for professionals to understand what a certain position requires and develop their own development plans. This has resulted in a chaotic market that is confusing to employers, academic and training institutions, and candidates; with a large number of unqualified candidates calling themselves “data scientist” or “analytics professional”.
In order to address this, a research study has been initiated at global scale. The study aims to gain insight about the analytics profession in the industry and help support the development of standards regarding analytics role definitions, required skills and career advancement paths. This will help set some industry standards which in turn could support the healthy growth of the analytics market. Research will be managed by an executive committee including academicians and industry leaders and representatives of large employers in the field.
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Motivation of the Workshop:
This half day workshop has the goal of sharing the first proposed standards and formulating the working agenda of the future on this important topic. We aim to announce and communicate the findings and recommendations of the study with the analytics community within this workshop and gather feedback to finalize the research report as well as define the missing components that enable us to launch a proper set of industry standards. In order to achieve intended aim, workshop will be held as a half day working meeting with short talks and feedback sessions aimed at defining and refining the proposed standards.
This workshop is intended to achieve 3 goals:
Share the initial findings, learnings, drafts of proposed standards with the workshop attendees
Hear summarized input and observations from practitioners, large Analytics/DS employers, and educators on the needs and issues they see
Collect feedback on the proposed standards and set a working plan for further development via a Standards Committee and a Steering Committee to guide the ongoing effort.