Teach on Udemy

Turn what you know into an opportunity and reach millions around the world.

Learn More

Your cart is empty.

Keep shopping

Practical Data Literacy for Leaders

Name: Practical Data Literacy for Leaders
Rating: 4.5 (774 reviews)

Make better data-driven business-decisions. Present your data like a PRO. Learn the key data and analytics terminology

Created byGeorgi Smarts

Last updated 7/2026

English

What you'll learn

How to effectively read and understand data
How to analyze data like a PRO
How to effectively argue with data
How to present data
How to make data-drive business-decisions
How to use statistical and analytical methods within your analysis

Course content

7 sections • 63 lectures • 3h 51m total length

Introduction2:40

What is Data Literacy?1:02
Develop data literacy by learning to explore, understand, and communicate with data using critical thinking, interpret data, make decisions with data, and convey its significance to others.
The Practical Project for this Course3:56
Download the Course Resources1:55
Download the course materials in the resource section, including the presentation and the Excel file used to explore the Kaili fashion project data, and follow along with the exercises.

Step 1 - Understand your goal and determine business questions8:53
Step 2 - Get the right data8:24
Step 3 - Understand the data and its sources8:29
Step 4 - Clean the data/ understand the data quality4:10
The Data Quality Dimensions1:54
Data Accuracy6:43
Data Validity3:51
Data Timeliness3:53
Data Completeness5:56
Data Uniqueness3:34
Data Consistency4:42
Chart games - how people will try to manipulate you! Part 14:24
Chart games - how people will try to manipulate you! Part 23:01
Explore chart games and how axis scale and labeling mask differences in units sold per product, and learn to spot misleading visuals in leadership presentations.
Chart games - how people will try to manipulate you! Part 32:55
Chart games - how people will try to manipulate you! Part 43:00
EXERCISE: Avoiding the chart game1:10
Evaluate two-year charts of total sales by country for 2022 and 2023, identify issues, and propose three concrete improvements to improve clarity and comparability.
SOLUTION: Avoiding the chart game2:53
Improve charts by placing 2022 and 2023 on one chart, label each bar clearly, and set the axis from zero to 30,000 to show sales per country.

Step 1 - Avoid Bias1:14
Confirmation Bias3:47
Outliers Bias2:24
Selection Bias2:30
Rush-to-Solve Bias2:02
Identify the rush-to-solve bias that drives decisions on limited data in fast-paced business environments, weigh quick decisions against potential worst-case outcomes, and decide what matters most for the business.
Availability Bias2:44
Guard against availability bias by recognizing that leaders decide from readily accessible data, across systems; ask three questions: have you received all data, can you wait to gather all data.
Anchor Bias2:39
Step 2 - Find the 80/20's in your data8:47
Apply the 80/20 Pareto principle to data analysis, focusing on what drives profits and using pivot tables and Pareto charts to visualize key drivers.
Step 3 - Derive questions from the data3:41
Step 4 - Bring in the business SMEs (Subject Matter Experts)2:53
Engage business SMEs to interpret data, uncover drivers behind numbers, and gain insights from data leads, managers, or partners before selecting KPIs and data points.
Step 5 - Choose the correct KPIs/data points5:50
Step 6 - Make sound data-driven decisions6:02
EXAMPLE - Data Driven Company4:21

Presenting data effectively intro1:35
Step 1 - Know your audience5:35
Step 2 - What is your goal?2:20
Identify your presentation goal by choosing from five categories—inform, educate, convince, inspire, or entertain—and set a specific post-presentation outcome.
Step 3 - Choose the critical KPIs to present2:15
Step 4 - Choose the right format3:59
Choose an engaging data presentation format by blending PowerPoint with live demos or dashboards, like Tableau, to tell a data-driven story through KPIs and transformations.
Step 5 - Choose the right charts/visualizations2:53
Choose effective visualizations for KPIs, using bar charts for trends, a dual axis graph for sales versus profits, and a donut chart for segments.
Step 6 - Focus on the key data points2:44
Step 7 - It is all about storytelling4:24
EXERCISE: Presentation preparation1:43

Module Intro1:39
Big Data3:32
Business Intelligence (BI)1:28
Data Architecture5:06
Data Dictionary4:09
Data Catalog5:46
Discover how a data catalog inventories data assets, describes datasets, and speeds access with a data dictionary. Increase data efficiency, reduce errors, and empower leaders with clearer insights.
Data Engineering2:39
Data Management7:03
Data Governance2:59
Dataset2:15
Data Quality2:41
Data Science5:49
Data Warehouse1:49
Explore the data warehouse, or dw/dwh, as a central repository that integrates current and historical data from multiple sources, and differentiate it from databases, data marts, and data lakes.
Data Mart3:08
Data Lake4:41
Data Visualization4:07
Visualize information to help leaders understand data and gain insights. Use charts and graphs to highlight trends and outliers, telling a compelling data story that informs decisions.
ETL3:43
Learn how ETL extracts data from sources like Salesforce, transforms it for the data warehouse, and loads it into reports. Explore how scheduled intervals delay the latest data.
Metadata2:14

Requirements

Basic excel knowledge will be helpful
Some of the practical exercises will require Excel to be performed

Description

This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.

Learn quickly with my Practical Data Literacy for Leaders course that covers the latest best practices from the Data Industry

This is a practical course! There is a course project that we will follow as we learn all the below topics.

In this course you will learn:

1. What is Data Literacy and why it is important

2. How to ask the correct data questions

3. How to make sure you are using the correct data

4. Analyze the quality of data that you receive

5. How to properly summarize data

6. How to drill-down on big datasets without missing important information

7. What is analysis bias and how to avoid it

8. How to derive the correct KPIs and data points

9. How to engage SMEs with the correct data questions for best results

10. How to make sound data-driven business-decisions

11. How to effectively argue with data

12. How to choose the right format for a presentation with focus on data

13. What charts/visualizations to choose for your presentation

14. How to use data to tell a story to your audience

15. Learn the most important and popular data and analytics terminology so you can undetrstand and engage in any meeting/email communication

16. Learn key data statistics and analytics concepts

and a lot of tips and tricks from 10+ years of experience!

Enroll today and enjoy:

Lifetime access to the course
5 hours of high quality, up to date video lectures
Practical Data Literacy course with step by step instructions on how to implement the different techniques

Thanks again for checking out my course and I look forward to seeing you in the classroom!

This course contains a promotion.

Who this course is for:

Executives
Business Leaders
Managers at all levels in the organization
Experienced individual contributors

Practical Data Literacy for Leaders

What you'll learn

Explore related topics

Course content

Introduction1 lecture • 3min

Module 1 - The Basics3 lectures • 7min

Module 2 - How to effectively read data17 lectures • 1hr 18min

Module 3 - How to effectively analyze data13 lectures • 49min

Module 4 - How to effectively present data9 lectures • 27min

Module 5 - Important Data and Analytics terminology18 lectures • 1hr 5min

What Next2 lectures • 3min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: