Data Analytics from a Social Perspective

Traditional data analytics projects focus on the structure and organization of the data. They take a data-first approach where the main objective is to integrate enterprise and external data transforming them into a valuable asset to be exploited by the organization. In this process, decision-makers often take a passive role. They provide an initial draft of the high-level goals and then accept or reject the results of the project. Compared to this approach, in this chapter, we present how the social perspective of the decision-makers can improve the project results by taking a user-first point of view. In our proposal, decision-makers take an active role in the development process, refining their high-level goals into specific requirements and analysis, without requiring in-depth domain knowledge of the underlying techniques nor the underneath data. As a result, critical decisions are made at an earlier stage in the process, leading to time and cost savings. Furthermore, end-user applications are enhanced, promoting greater intuitiveness and streamlining the decision-making process. Finally, we have checked our proposal in a real-world project showing the benefits of having an integrated view of different stakeholders in the same modeling approach, thereby taking better informed decisions.