One thing you'll soon learn about the Data School is that Fridays are allocated to projects, both internal and client-facing. Last week, as part of our training, we were assigned a Tableau-based task which ended up turning into a very fun day! In the morning, we were assigned a partner from our German counterpart, DSDE2. Our friends over in Europe started at the exact same time as us and are therefore at a very similar point in their DS journey, with only a slight difference in the order that the curriculum is delivered.

The Task:

When we received the briefing, we were tasked with organising a call with our pair and getting to know them a little bit. As part of the final presentation, we would need to introduce our 'other half' to everybody and so we spent a bit of time learning about each others' backgrounds. On to the work itself, our job was to choose one of three COVID data sets (vaccines, cases & deaths), think of some questions we wanted to try and answer and then start building some charts, before eventually assembling and presenting a dashboard.

Partner & Outset:

From the German DS, I was paired with Nhung Le. Nhung is originally from Vietnam, where she obtained her Bachelors degree. She then moved to Germany and began learning the language, before starting to study near Hamburg for a Masters in International Economics & Politics. Following completion of her studies, Nhung took a bit of a gap year and during that/the onset of COVID, decided to attend a job fair. It was there that she found out about The Data School and this is now her first job following education!

As a duo, we decided to take a look at the data set concerning COVID cases in the UK. With the measures that were provided, we felt as though we could break things down and look at cases over time, in terms of seasonality, by region and more, which could result in an interesting and holistic presentation.

What went well:

From the outset, our communication was very clear and it seemed like we had similar ideas for what we wanted to create, which made it very easy to finish the brainstorming phase and get straight down to business. We both got on very well with each other and the process of planning, discussing and building over Zoom seemed to go about as smooth as it could have. As a team, we were able to come up with solid sketches for what we needed in our final presentation, which definitely helped to keep things on track - Tableau can often cause you to go down a bit of a rabbit hole once you get playing around with some of the tools and options! Throughout the day, we also remained conscious of time and were able to allocate ourselves a good lunch break, as well as plenty of time at the end for a practice run of our presentation. This was a real plus as, in the previous week, time management had been a big issue which had a large knock on effect for my lunch break & practice time. Finally, I have to give a lot of credit to Nhung, who accommodated my non-existent German skills and conducted the whole day in English - her third language!

What didn't go well:

Unfortunately, the project was pretty time-sensitive and we only had around 3.5 hours to complete the whole thing; meeting one another, planning, building and bringing everything together, with a lunch break and practice sprinkled in there for good measure! This meant that certain elements of the dashboard were rushed and it didn't look like too much of a polished, finished product. There were also a couple of things that we didn't consider, which would've most likely been ironed out if the process had been longer. However, everyone is aware of the time restraints and are therefore understanding of issues that arise from this. The main aim of the project, after all, is to practice working with each other and applying the skills we've learnt so far!

In summary:

Overall, I feel as though the project went very well. It was once again a great learning experience to see what can be achieved in such a short amount of time. Working with a member of the German cohort was also very fun - it was a fantastic opportunity to get to know them and also work and present over Zoom, which is likely to come up more and more in the future, due to how things are in the world right now. I think the coaches really smashed it with this one in terms of providing a fun, engaging and interesting Friday! Below you can see a little snapshot of Nhung and I's dashboard!