Pre-conference Course: Consultancy Skills for Statisticians

Name of presenter: Roland Caulcutt

 

Objectives:

1.  To review the many context-related and inter-personal difficulties that statisticians may encounter during consultancy interactions.

2.  To offer models or theories or paradigms, which shed light on why these difficulties arise.

3.  To indicate which ways of working might be most effective with various clients.

Topics:

"Introduction"                                       

The statistical consultant advises his/her client on the collection, analysis and interpretation of data, in a particular context   How do the roles of statistician and client differ and how well does the statistician need to understand the client and the context in order to add maximum value?

 

"Communication between statistician and client"

It has been demonstrated that communication is much easier if statistician and client have similar personality types.  What difficulties are you likely to have with different types?  In the workshop we will discuss the difficulties you are likely to encounter and propose some ways of addressing these.  [To discover your personality type, go to http://www.humanmetrics.com, or http://www.personalitypathways.com.] 

"Consultancy.  What's in it for me?"

If a statistician focuses solely on statistical advice or data analysis, then he or she is likely to encounter difficulties in the consulting relationship.  All stakeholders of the consultancy interaction are seeking to satisfy their own personal needs.  How can the statistician recognise these needs and adapt his/her approach? 

Closing discussions