Navigating uncertainty as an analyst

Posted on: January 25, 2025

Post Category: Professional Development

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Two years ago, I started my data analytics career at Quantium.

I joined the company with bright eyes, at the same time as 50+ other graduates. And in a forum, where the graduates could ask the CEOs any questions, I was the first to put up my hand.

It was a year of impactful and interesting work, working within the internal Finance team. I learnt how to use a wide range of new tools, and I got to work with data on the company’s revenue, costs, and employees.

But after that year, the graduates and I had to do a compulsory move to another part of the business.

Each graduate picked the preferred divisions they’d like to join, but unfortunately, I’d move to a team I didn’t pick. And because I couldn’t have much say in the matter, I wasn’t totally upset… and I just looked forward to the next experience.

And after that point, for the first time in my career, I felt work was uncertain.

I worked on a Health project for about a month, before moving to a Retail-GenAI project.

I worked on that Retail-GenAI project for a month, before moving to a project in the Growth team.

I worked on that Growth project for a month, before moving back to Health.

And after working in Health for a few weeks, I moved to a product team (which is where I am now).

The business experienced a rough patch. And because of that, I also had a rough patch with my experience at the company.

I didn’t particularly enjoy the work – aside from that Retail-GenAI project I got invited onto for a month, where I did fun technical work. A lot of the work I did at the time was more about “winning work” for the business. This meant doing research into industries/companies I was unfamiliar with, and helping clients navigate potential areas for improvement (which we could help with). And this proved a lot more confusing and challenging than I thought it would be.

And with the team movements I kept having, I had to keep adjusting to new background information, my leaders’ ways of working, and their expectations for someone at my level.

It was a rough patch… but when I look back on this experience, it did help me learn one thing: when things feel unfamiliar or uncertain, speak up.

This means:

• asking for help when you’re not sure about the context or the next steps,
• proposing a way forward and asking for confirmation from your leader, and
• proactively communicating with stakeholders to define what the next steps are.

When things feel uncertain, your thoughts become messy – you raise a lot of questions and you start making guesses. You try to come up with a plan, but it comes out imperfect.

But you avoid these things but just simply asking questions to, and working with, others involved in your project.

The more unanswered questions you bottle up, the poorer your progress, the poorer your confidence in your ability, and the poorer your outcomes. This creates a lot more stress down the line – stress that could have easily been avoided by just speaking up.

It might seem like an obvious lesson, but when you reach a point in your career and life where a lot of things are happening at once, it’s hard to figure out what should change to improve your situation/outcomes. And I had to properly relearn that’s it totally ok (more so, highly encouraged) to speak up.

As of writing, I’m still in the product team, and speaking up is a habit I’m embedding into my work. It’s also an important part of our team’s workflow management, ever since our priorities got rescoped (ever since our new manager joined).

While a rather elementary learning about communication skills… communication skills look to be the most critical skill required for analysts. After all, without communicating and getting clear on what is required, you get shitty outcomes.

Hopefully this was an insightful piece for anyone who is currently going through a rough patch in their work – where things feel uncertain. Sometimes it can feel like a lot of things are happening at once, and that there are a lot of moving parts to think about, but try speaking up. Even if you’re afraid of asking questions, try be candid – it’s totally ok to say that you’re unsure, or that you’re confused.

If you can’t make a decision yourself, try passing that decision onto someone else.