"Growing" a SAS analyst

The other day, someone asked me how to “grow” a SAS business analyst. My first thought was “Let Capital One do it for you”. I then got to thinking about what it means to “grow” someone. I think the question was really “what skills does a SAS analyst need?” I was talking to David Ye, who is a senior manager on my stats team about this problem and he noted that there is often a difference between SAS programmers and SAS business analyst. Just to be clear, I am talking about a business analyst role.

Putting aside things that make a good analyst (being a voracious and tenacious problem solver, have a good understanding of your business dynamics, good written communication skills, etc), an analyst who relies on SAS as their primary analytic tool needs to:

• To be able to pull their own data (SQL skills and Proc SQL)
• Know how to use SAS efficiently (can’t overstate the importance of this, think temp tables…)
• Have a good understand the analytic procedures available (and options) they need for their job (I like Proc Means, Anova, Reg, Corr, Cluster, Factor, Chart, Plot, and Tabulate. Also, if you are doing serious experimental work, you need GLM and Mixed)
• How to leverage the various programming options (Macro, SAS Code)

Some of these are easier than others to develop. Most of these skills are hard won, so if you are trying to train someone up on anything but the most basic Procs, my advice would be to hire an experienced person and have them train new staff. Someone who is new to SAS, in my opinion, needs someone close by to answer questions.