When you take on the mantle of Citizen Data Scientist, there is a lot to process! Much of the reason business users feel overwhelmed at the idea of the Citizen Data Scientist role is the anticipation of having to learn new tools and techniques to analyze data.

“I am not a data scientist”, “I don’t understand analytics”, “this new role is going to take up all my time”, “my manager doesn’t care about this stuff” – these are just a few of the arguments you will hear when you bring up the concept of Citizen Data Scientists, improved data literacy and data democratization. But, in the real world, the introduction of a Citizen Data Scientist initiative should not be intimidating or overwhelming.

There are many benefits to the Citizen Data Scientist evolution. Here are just a few:

• The business will base its decisions on facts
• It is easier to understand and address issues and opportunities
• Business users can add more value to the business
• Business users can add skills to their resume and advance their careers
• Businesses can improve their competitive stance
• Businesses will be more nimble and agile and ready to respond to the market

All of these benefits depend on the organization being prepared to change its culture and to support Citizen Data Scientists as they take on their new role. One of the most important aspects of this change requires establishing a foundation of augmented analytics solution and providing easy, intuitive methods to access and perform analytics without the need for data scientist or business analyst skills.

With the right self-serve augmented analytics, Citizen Data Scientists can leverage auto-recommendations, suggestions and guidance to choose the right algorithm or analytical technique and visualization techniques to receive clear results suitable for presentation and reporting.