Six ‘Soft’ Skills Every Analyst Needs To Know

As featured in the January/February 2011 issue of Analytics Magazine

By F. Freeman Marvin  and William K. Klimack

In an article in Interfaces, the authors discuss four driving factors behind the analytics movement . One factor they mention is that a “focus on processes in many organizations has shifted demand for decision support and problem solving away from human decision-makers to processes.” And yet, the authors, Liberatore and Luo note, competing on analytics still requires well-rounded analysts: “In analyzing more than a thousand O.R. job advertisements, According to Sodhi and Son (2008)  employers value strong technical skills but also seek an array of soft skills.”

As practicing decision analysts, we have learned from personal experience that lack of interpersonal “soft” skills can be a significant barrier to project success and the adoption of analytics within organizations.To help improve the interpersonal skills of analysts, we developed the Soft Skills Workshop in 2008 with a team of other O.R. practitioners to gather best practices and provide realistic training. Our team has conducted the workshop for the past three years prior to the annual INFORMS Conference on O.R. Practice.

http://www.analytics-magazine.com/january-february-2011/76-special-conference-section-people-to-people.html