After 6 weeks of intense training at the data school, we have started client projects. These are short (~2.5 days over the week) projects that push us to put our data preparation and visualisation skills to the test. Our first client project was internal, featuring our fictional airline, Prep Air. I entered the cockpit as project manager this week and the team prepared to fly with PowerBI.
Takeoff: the kick-off call
The first part of any client project is the brief, this is usually sent on the Friday before the project starts, but in this case we received it Monday morning. After some pre-call preparation with the team, we began the kick-off call. This is one of the most important parts of the week, where the client briefs and receives questions from the team. This is one of the most important parts of the whole week, as it includes the interpreting needs of the client, deciding the scope of the project, and setting expectations for the week.
The brief
Heathrow-based Prep Air, an airline founded in future year of 2110, have faced significant turbulence in recent years and were concerned about underperformance. Our coach/Prep Air CEO, Lorna, needed a clearer view of the business, and wished to utilise existing data to drive better decision-making.
Prep Air were keen to leverage PowerBI, Microsoft's business intelligence tool, to help them analyse their data and generate actionable insights. After our kick-off call, we spent the next couple of hours building user stories, conceptualising charts and, most importantly, understanding the data.
The data
Our flight path began with accessing the data from the clients SQL server. These included some generic names such as Aircraft, Airports, Flights, Passengers, and Revenue. With some tables containing over a million rows. Unfortunately, we neglected some of our pre-flight checks. In fact, we actually had connected to tables from Prep Air's USA affliate, remember to double check the essentials!
The plan
As our overarching objective was to showcase the capabilities of Power BI, we focused our efforts on creating dashboards that would analyse three core business areas:
- General Performance: A high-level, light-touch overview dashboard suitable for shareholders and executive reports.
- Sales Analysis: A more exploratory dashboard to break down sales data and identify trends.
- Operations Breakdown: A deep dive into flight delays and their impact on business performance.
We also set two stretch goals: a Customer Satisfaction Review Dashboard and a Human Resource Overview Dashboard, to be tackled if time permitted. Sketches of these dashboards were presented to the client, and feedback was received on the proposed charts and metrics within them. With our first day over, we had reached altitude.
The toolkit:
With our plan in place, we had decided upon our tools for the week, much like a pilot's instruments.
- Power BI (with Power Query for data preparation and transformation)
- Excalidraw for wireframing and collaborative ideation
- Google Workspace for documentation and project management
- Microsoft PowerPoint for our final presentation (used for its ability to embed PowerBI workbooks)
Turbulence: wrangling the data
The first major task was a collaborative effort in Power Query. With a team of seven, it was crucial to unify our data preparation process to ensure consistency across all dashboards. We cleaned, transformed, and modelled the 9 tables, creating a solid foundation for our visualisations.
The descent: creating dashboards
From our data prep foundation, we built our core Power BI reports. Whilst as project manager I didn't do any dashboard building personally, I did have to create a template and implement the clients style guide. This is an important task, as a good template keeps the dashboards created by different people looking clean and consistent. I determined the hex codes to be used across different categores, the levels of spacing required between charts, font size and type, as well as the dimensions and background decoration of the dashboard.
Meanwhile, the team split into teams of two, each tackling one of our core dashboards. In just over 4 hours of flying at maximum speed, they produced 16 charts across 4 dashboards as well as 12 key performance metrics. They were able to deliver on all three core objectives and one of our stretch goals. Each dashboard was designed to tell a specific story, providing Prep Air's leadership with insights at a glance.
Whilst we can't share dashboards generated during client projects, the team pulled together extremely well and was pushed beyond our original goal of 3 dashboards.
Sticking the landing: delivery and final presentation
As our dashboards came together, I had two important last jobs to complete as the project manager. Firstly, I had to build the presentation, decide upon the order we would present each piece of work, and format the finished product. Secondly, after presenting, we had to package our reports and hand them over (with documentation!) to the client. It was my responsibility to ensure that each team member handed over all the required files before the final deadline. Before this though, it was time for the landing! Would it be smooth sailing? Or there were bumps on the runway?
Client Feedback and Future Flight Path
We presented our findings to the client(and coach!) on the final day of the project. The feedback was mostly positive, with a request for a few minor tweaks. We were able to fix most of these before delivering our finalised dashboards during handover. One technical hitch was the missed opportunity in recording our presentation, which I would strongly recommend to any future project managers!
Based on the feedback, we outlined a clear set of next steps for future data analysts to take on including: refining our metrics by including context from previous periods, improving upon charts to increase options for analysis and cleaning formatting to improve clarity.
Lessons from the Cockpit: Personal Reflections
As I reflected with my post-flight tea, I was able to see significant growth throughout the project from both myself and the team. These are summarised below:
Leadership and Technical Growth: As the project manager for the week, this was a significant test of my leadership skills. I learned the importance of clear direction, delegation, and incorporating feedback to keep the team moving forward. For everyone on the team, it was a fantastic opportunity to sharpen our Power BI skills, especially after a recent focus on Tableau. Applying these skills under pressure was the best way to consolidate our learning.
Challenges Faced: Time pressure was immense. A change to the typical schedule meant we had to be ruthless during scoping to ensure we delivered a quality product. We also hit a technical snag when we accidentally connected to the wrong data source early on, which cost us valuable time. It proves that you should always double-check the fundamentals!
Documentation, Documentation, Documentation: Personally, this was the thing I found most challenging. Without a clear process, seven people can create a a large number of duplicate or deprecated files. We learned that directing the team to use collaborative software from the outset and maintaining strict version control is essential to keep document creep under control.
A Successful Flight: Despite the challenges, the team's communication and commitment were outstanding. Everyone gave 100%, and the collaborative spirit was the key to our success. This project felt like the perfect final check before we take on our first external client project next week, and I'm confident that the lessons learned have set us up for a smooth takeoff.