Supporting a leading law firm with data analysis

Grayce Data+ Analyst, Adam Craven reflects on how he’s supporting a leading UK law firm with their Information Lifecycle Management as a Data Analyst.

I’m currently on assignment as a Data Analyst in the Development Team at a leading UK law firm. My project involves working with the IT Department on Information Lifecycle Management, which means managing the flow of information and records from their creation to deletion.

Some of the main considerations as part of my project are adhering to GDPR requirements by protecting sensitive data, tracking the progress of the projects impact on the wider business and creating a process for starters, movers and leavers so that we can understand how this affects data storage. In my role as a Data Analyst, I’ve been able to turn hundreds of millions of unstructured data files into a structured output for analysis, and have analysed the performance of our project deliverables over a prolonged period of time to be able to track the project’s performance and impact.

The main strength I believe I bring to my client is my analytical mindset. Currently, I’m the only Data Analyst on the project who has knowledge of tools like Excel, SQL and PowerQuery. My knowledge of Excel allowed me to create a comprehensive dashboard to track progress of the project’s impact on unstructured data overtime. My dashboard tracks several metrics and has now been rolled out to all departments across my client so that they can view and track their own performance whenever needed. As well as this, I was able to deliver analytical reports to individual departments to help them take action on specific problems they’re facing.

My Development Programme training has set me up for success in a few key ways. As well as mentoring and support from my Delivery Manager, I gained the knowledge and experience in Agile training that I needed to be able to transition into my client’s team with ease. My client’s team uses an Agile framework to ensure we deliver our tasks on time and to specification, this includes delivering daily stand-ups to help members of the team track our own performance.

My time on client site has taught me that development in data and IT is never-ending and always evolving, so anyone working in this area should commit to ongoing learning. Also, I’ve found that as you gain more experience with data tools and techniques, a greater analytical understanding develops naturally as you start to gain more confidence.