Data Analytics
Data Literacy for Managers
A practical one-day course for managers who need to interpret metrics, dashboards, and analysis clearly, ask better data questions, and make stronger evidence-based decisions.
- Format
- Live virtual, in-person, or private on-site
- Duration
- 1 day
- Level
- Introductory
- From
- $695.00
About this course
Course overview
Make better decisions with data without becoming an analyst.
Data Literacy for Managers is a practical one-day course for leaders who need to interpret metrics, dashboards, and analysis clearly. The course helps managers translate business problems into useful data questions, spot misleading analysis, communicate with analysts and BI teams, and turn evidence into better management decisions.
Participants leave with practical tools they can use in performance reviews, planning conversations, improvement work, and executive updates: a data-question checklist, dashboard critique guide, analytics request template, and decision-quality routine.
Learning outcomes
What you'll learn
Every module is tied to an outcome you can bring back to your team the next day.
- Translate business problems into useful data questions, measures, segments, comparisons, and decision criteria
- Distinguish counts, rates, ratios, averages, medians, trends, targets, baselines, and leading/lagging indicators
- Recognize correlation versus causation, sampling bias, vanity metrics, misleading charts, missing context, and false precision
- Use evidence, uncertainty, risk, and business judgment to choose next actions
- Write better analytics requests and collaborate effectively with analysts, BI teams, and technical partners
- Apply practical data quality, ownership, privacy, and ethical-use expectations for management decisions
- Document 8.0 PMI education PDUs: 3 Ways of Working, 2 Power Skills, and 3 Business Acumen
Audience
Who it's for
- Managers, supervisors, and department leaders who use dashboards or reports to make decisions
- Project managers, product owners, operations leaders, and business analysts who need stronger data conversations
- Leaders who work with analysts, BI teams, finance teams, or technical partners
- Teams that need a shared language for metrics, uncertainty, visualization, data quality, and decision-making
Course structure
Syllabus
A structured path from core concepts to applied practice.
Module 1 - Data Literacy Foundations
- What managers need to know about data, analytics, dashboards, and decision support
- Business questions, hypotheses, measures, baselines, targets, and decision criteria
- Data types, grain, segments, filters, and the difference between activity and outcomes
- Turn a vague business concern into a useful data question
Module 2 - Reading Metrics and Dashboards
- Counts, rates, percentages, ratios, averages, medians, percentiles, and trends
- Leading and lagging indicators; input, output, outcome, and guardrail metrics
- Dashboard anatomy: charts, tables, scorecards, drilldowns, alerts, and narrative context
- Critique a management dashboard and identify missing questions
Module 3 - Basic Statistical Judgment for Managers
- Variation, noise, outliers, sample size, confidence, and practical significance
- Correlation versus causation; common causes of misleading conclusions
- Bias, survivorship effects, selection effects, and bad comparisons
- Interpret a messy trend and decide what to do next
Module 4 - Data Storytelling and Decision Communication
- Matching charts to decisions: trend, comparison, composition, distribution, and relationship
- Executive summaries, insight statements, caveats, and recommendation framing
- Communicating uncertainty without sounding vague or overconfident
- Turn dashboard evidence into a management recommendation
Module 5 - Data Governance, Requests, and Action Planning
- Data quality, definitions, ownership, privacy, access, and ethical-use expectations
- How to write a useful analytics request or dashboard enhancement request
- Decision rituals: review cadence, thresholds, escalation, experiments, and follow-up
- Build your manager's data decision checklist
Public cohorts
Upcoming sessions
Secure your seat in a live, instructor-led cohort. Private team deliveries available on request.
No public cohorts on the calendar yet.
We run this course as a private team cohort on demand, or you can be the first to know when the next public date drops.
Frequently asked questions
Still have questions?
Do I need analytics or statistics experience?
Will we build dashboards?
What do I walk away with?
How many professional development hours does this course document?
Can a private session use our own dashboards?
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Bring this training to your team
We deliver private cohorts in-person and online, tailored to your operating context.