When you are doing data science, you are doing research. You want to use data to answer a question, identify a new pattern, improve a current product, or come up with a new product. The common factor underlying each of these tasks is that you want to use the data to answer a question that you haven’t answered before. The most effective process we have come up for getting those answers is the scientific research process. That is why the key word in data science is not data, it is science.

No matter where you are doing data science - in academia, in a non-profit, or in a company - you …