Denver Peak Academy

Denver has been collaborating with the Johns Hopkins Center for Government Excellence (GovEx) through the Bloomberg Philanthropies “What Works Cities” initiative since December, enhancing the city’s open data process and designing opportunities to improve data analysis capabilities. By enhancing our data collection and analysis, Denver can deliver services in a more targeted way and make better, more data-driven decisions about where to provide city resources.

Denver and GovEx just developed a training for management analysts, and other data analysts, throughout the city, which focuses on inferential statistics (drawing conclusions about a large population from a small sample, using tools such as t-tests, hypothesis tests, and regression analysis) and data visualization through dashboards. Peak delivered the training to 18 participants representing 10 different departments, and each participant had a different background in statistics. For some, this training was brand-new, and for others it was a refresher of previous college courses.

This two-day training, which occurred March 15^th and 16^th, sought to demystify analytics and demonstrate how inferential statistics can be applied to their work.  The two trainers, Kate May and Greg Reger from the Peak team, also introduced a structured analytical problem-solving process, tools and tips to clean data in Excel, and a low-cost dashboarding tool so trainees can hit the ground running back in their departments.

Overall, the participants loved the Excel tips and tricks, dashboarding tool, data visualization module, and the final exercise which combined all the concepts to analyze and visualize a 311 dataset from Denver’s Open Data Catalog. 90% rated the class as outstanding/a great experience. Here are some of the responses from participants, when asked what they liked best about the analytics training:

“Knowing that we were laying the groundwork to help countless other city employees improve process and better serve their customers”

“Directly applicable to my work”

“Loved the resource. The tips & tricks and exposure to the dashboard and applications.”

“Learning about tools that will be valuable in my job.”

Before we offer the class again, the participants suggested that the training be even more practical, applied, and hands-on, such as by asking students to bring an example, doing both group and individual exercises, and modifying the content to be less hypothetical and theoretical.

In the near future, we will offer this training again to additional Denver employees and offer an advanced analytics series, because these are tools that can help every department in the city.  Stay tuned!