Stage 1 · Lesson 5 of 6
The analysis workflow and tidy data
Most analyses follow the same loop. You ask a question, prepare the data, process and clean it, and analyse it. Then you share the result, help people act, and check whether the action worked.
This loop is often called . Knowing it stops you skipping the dull steps, especially cleaning and sharing. That is where most analyses go wrong or end up unused.
Underneath it sits the idea of : each row is one observation, each column is one variable, and each cell holds one value. Spreadsheets, SQL, and (a library for tables) all work best on tidy tables. So reshaping messy layouts into this form is a big part of preparing data.
Common trapreceiving a report-style sheet with merged headers and monthly columns, and analysing it as it is.
A question to check yourself, an AI practice session and 2 cheat sheet entries come with the full roadmap. Unlock