Optimize Like a Pro With LSD
Introduction # Start-ups often need to move faster than traditional A/B testing best practices allow. Typically, A/B tests need a couple of weeks to gather enough data, sometimes more. When multiple improvements are ready to ship, waiting to test them one at a time can mean lost momentum or missed opportunities. Enter the Latin Square Design (LSD), a brilliant example of working smarter instead of harder. As a result of using LSD, your estimate of the treatment effect has significant sources of noise removed, which means:
To A/B or not to A/B
Introduction # This is the story of a project that started off as a straightforward A/B test but soon revealed more than we expected. Along the way, we uncovered additional insights that added depth to our understanding and expanded the scope of the analysis. It’s been quite a while now, since I worked as an independent data and analytics consultant. I went freelance after many years working on data systems, BI, and MIS for a large, multinational education company. I realised that I had discovered an outsize passion and enthusiasm for data science while leading projects using applied statistics, data mining and algorithmic forecasting during my tenure in the early 2010’s. In that role, the longer term opportunities to develop this skill set further were not available. So, with a little trepidation and renewed sense of clarity over my career goals, I took a decisive step to cut myself loose and find more such project work on my own initiative.
Tallinn Ride Hailing App
Introduction # I acquired a fun little data set for a well-known ride-hailing app recently. I performed a pretty detailed analysis at the request of my source, including some clustering of the ride start locations. The idea was to help drivers plan ahead to get into position before times of peak demand. There’s no NDA and this data is no longer very fresh, so I thought it would be nice to show the results in an interactive Tableau viz.
Educational Attainment in England - A Deeper Dive
Introduction # On the 25th July 2023, the UK Office for National Statistics produced a wonderful piece of data journalism with open access to their dataset measuring educational attainment across England. The article’s title “Why do children and young people in smaller towns do better academically than those in larger towns?” hides a bold claim in the form of a question. I like to assume that their research question(s) did not start from such a knowledge claim but rather the title emerged from the themes they discovered during their investigation.
Tech Stock Stories - The Pandemic Winners
As we breath a collective sigh of relief that the COVID-19 pandemic is behind us, it’s interesting to think about the winners and losers of this unique period of living memory. Judging by the stock performance of US tech giants, I’d say their shareholders did rather well while the rest of the world switched to remote work and spent all our time indoors. Please enjoy my Tableau Viz below, which is a candle chart of the stock performance of US tech giants during the pre- and post-pandemic period. We can see the month average highs, lows, opens and closes, and you can pick the company of interest from the drop down list on the right.