Data drills are bite-sized, tool-agnostic practice challenges built to help you solve real business scenarios, like calculating readmissiong rates in healthcare, or finding which products are often bought together in a store (market basket analysis).
They isolate a single task that might otherwise be a small piece of a larger project, so you can sharpen a specific skill without working through an entire end-to-end build.
How data drills differ from other Maven resources
Data drills sit alongside two other practice formats, and it's worth knowing which one fits what you're trying to do:
Courses teach general workflows or tools from the ground up.
Guided practice projects walk you through an end-to-end solution, from raw data to a final deliverable.
Data drills isolate one specific task and ask you to solve it.
If you've just finished a course and want to keep the skill fresh, a drill is usually the right next step.
Tip: Data drills are tool-agnostic. You can solve them in Excel, SQL, Python, Power BI, or whatever tool you're currently working to strengthen.
Who can access data drills
Data drills are free and available to everyone, including people without a Maven account. New drills are published at least monthly, and every past drill stays available on demand, so you can work through the archive at your own pace.
Each drill is labeled beginner, intermediate, or advanced. The labels are there for transparency, not gatekeeping. Any user can attempt any difficulty, and there are no prerequisites.
How to access data drills
In the top site menu, go to Platform → Free Practice Resources → Data Drills. From there, you can browse the current drill and every drill that's been published previously, and attempt any of them on demand.
Tip: Keep an eye on the drill you're interested in even when you solve them. A short period after we publish the drill, we release a video of our instructor team solving the drill using different tools.
Not finding what you need? Reach out or send us a chat — we're happy to help.