Happy Holidays! This is the final issue of 2025. Whether you’ve been a frequent reader over the last 10 months, or just hopped on the last couple weeks, I want to take a brief moment to say thank you for reading PlotStack this year.

Not to be dramatic, but launching this newsletter back in February was one of the boldest career moves I’d ever taken. Watching this community grow and being able to engage with avid readers has made this one hell of a special ride. I’ll keep this short and sweet, but just know that I will continue working hard in 2026 for you. Cheers to another year! 🍻

With that being said, as 2025 comes to a close, I’ve been reflecting on what characteristics actually made the biggest differences not just in my career, but my teams’ as well.

Let me just say, it certainly wasn’t a particular tool or certification. Instead, it was a handful of core skills that showed up again and again, regardless of the complexity of the project.

This issue is all about those characteristics, the ones worth locking in on as we head into 2026.

Have an incredible holiday season and I’ll talk to you in the new year!

This Week’s Highlight - 5 Skills That Will Set High-Impact Analysts Apart in 2026 (and Beyond)

Whether intentional, or not, high-impact analysts don’t immediately start with charts or SQL queries, they start with questions. They take time to understand the real business problem, the decision at stake, and what success actually looks like. What this looks like in practice:

This alone can save hours of wasted work and dramatically increase trust with stakeholders.

Tools change. Business fundamentals don’t.

The analysts who stand out are the ones who understand how the company makes money, what metrics leaders actually care about, and how their work fits into the bigger picture. Focus areas to lock in on:

You don’t need to be the most technical person in the room. You need to be the most relevant.

Insight without action is just information.

High-impact analysts know how to communicate clearly, tailoring their message to executives, operators, or technical peers without overwhelming them. This means:

In 2026, the analysts who can tell a clear story will greatly outpace those who can only build models.

Not every analysis is worth doing. Not every metric deserves attention.

Strong analysts develop judgment, knowing where to spend time, when “good enough” is enough, and what will actually move the needle. Ways to build this skill:

This is a career-accelerating skill, especially as expectations grow.

High-impact analysts don’t just deliver dashboards, they take ownership of outcomes.

They follow up. They check whether insights were understood. They adjust when reality doesn’t match expectations. What ownership looks like:

Effective Problem Framing & Decision-Making: A Structured Approach by Melkisedeck Leon Shine
An 8 step decision guide that frames problems into easy-to-understand modules to reduce cognitive bias and produce faster, better outcomes in your analyses. Read more

Framing Data Science Problems the Right Way From the Start by Roger Hoerl et. al.
Data science initiatives have an estimated 80% failure rate. That’s embarrassing. This article explains the ‘why’ behind this metric and how we can improve our chances of success in the data science / analytics space. There’s a gate halfway through the article, but ChatGPT can summarize it still if interested. Read more

Elevate Your Business Communication: The Role of Critical Thinking by Gene Prazoli
(I’m probably sounding like a broken record here, but) Business communication and critical thinking aren’t going anywhere no matter how much AI and advanced tools we implement in our workflows. Communication and Critical Thinking remains high as a competitive edge for data professionals. Read more

Relay.app #AI #Productiity
Founded by ex product manager at Google (Jacob Bank). This AI agent builder makes task management a breeze. From scanning websites for research to automating tedious tasks Relay can handle it all. I personally have been using this for months to help with research tasks. Tutorial videos included in the next section. 👇

iShortn #Productivity
A neat tool I found kind of by accident. This app will allow you to create custom short links (think Bitly but back in the day before they started charging for everything). The developer, Kamoaba, is very engaged with the app and has made a very generous free version.

▶️ Build an AI agent with me! by Relay
This is an entire YouTube playlist with a plethora of knowledge on building AI agents to help with tasks ranging from scanning Reddit communities to an AI sales coach and everything in between. This app has helped me tremendously with relieving some of my smaller tedious tasks managing a newsletter and tech blog!

💲 Discount Available 🆓 Free Product Available

Did you know? The QWERTY keyboard layout was originally designed to slow people down to avoid typewriter jams. 💻