Ask the AG Expert: Data Analytics with Zach Tigert, Senior Associate

AG Consulting Partners promotes a collaborative and stewarding approach to cultivate skills and share knowledge. In this article series, we showcase members of the AGCP team and share their advice to others interested in their area of expertise.

Zack Tigert is a Senior Associate at AGCP and specializes in data analytics. He is currently a Data Analyst Program Manager, supporting a customer success organization for a global technology client’s cloud platform.

Q: Describe a project you’ve worked on at AGCP requiring your skills in analytics.

I had been working at AGCP for about a week when my manager asked me to rebuild a Power BI dashboard for the yearly employee survey. Part of this rebuild required my expertise in improving visualization of the qualitative data and translating it into a concise and easily digestible report.

Beyond that, I recently built a Power Apps tool for the Analytics team I support. This tool enables us to triage the team tasks into our weekly meeting leveraging Power Apps, a SharePoint list and Power Automate.

Q: What trends are you seeing in data analytics that you’re excited about?

I’m excited to see the continual improvements to the Power BI interface. The tool constantly releases program improvements to truly enhance and diversify my experience in analyzing data and creating comprehensive reporting. One example is the recent integration of Power Automate and PowerApps, resulting in a greatly enhanced reporting experience both visually and functionally.

Q: How did you develop your skills in data analytics?

I’m driven to learn and take advantage of opportunities. This drive propels me to dig into challenges and lean into technical problems in projects. As a result, I’ve successfully developed my expertise in Power BI and Excel, and I have acquired an invaluable knowledge base.

In addition to my on-the-job experience, I’ve taken courses on Udemy and Coursera to gain a stronger foundation in basic coding (e.g., HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and come Java) SQL, R, and data analysis. This combination of structured courses and impromptu learning has shaped my unique expertise in the field of data analytics.

Q: What’s a memorable challenge you’ve experienced in data analytics and how did you overcome it?

My first efforts in data analytics supported a project focused primarily on customer service escalations. Much of the data was poorly represented and unorganized, as it relied heavily on agent notes. This challenge pushed me to learn how to use DAX in Power BI, and in turn, change it into more usable and digestible content.

In another memorable experience, I supported a project where coding and project management work also incorporated analytics. During this time, I worked closely with an engineer to establish a strong foundation and proceeded to create a mass mailing tool using C# in Visual Studios. The engineer gave me some code for querying data from our Azure Dev Ops instance – WIQL format – and some code to send an email. From there, I wrote a couple hundred lines of code to build dictionaries, sort them, and send all the assigned work items to the correct PMs and engineers on our partner teams.

Q: When approaching a new project, what advice can you share related to your expertise to aid in another’s success?

I have worked on a lot of data analytics projects in an ad-hoc versus structured manner, such as tackling a somewhat unclear need to tell a story, visualizing an impactful issue, or digging into the details for some sort of process cleanup. I’ve learned the most important thing in approaching a new project is to first leverage structural principles of project management and business analysis. You need to start by meeting with any stakeholders in need of your data efforts to get a sense of the problem they’re trying to solve, the story they’re trying to tell (if applicable), and how to translate their requirements into follow-up.

Be curious and embrace the challenge! The way to learn analytics, or any technical discipline, is to dig into problems that come your way. Beyond that, if you are interested in learning more about this work, reach out to others you know with expertise and jump into online courses to push your skillset forward.

At AG Consulting Partners, we believe in taking care of our people first to enable them to bring their best to every client project. Our employees embrace the entrepreneurial spirit and embody our core values: transparency, stewardship, and intention. Founded in 2009, and headquartered in the Greater Seattle area, AG Consulting Partners is recognized as one of Inc 5000 and Puget Sound Business Journal’s fastest growing private companies.