Reddit mentions of Understanding Variation: The Key to Managing Chaos

As everybody else here says in different ways, do these three steps
1: find out the business problems people are trying to solve by going to where they work and sitting down with them. LITERALLY where they work. The gemba, as it's called
2: this will tell you the decisions they need to make.
3: this will tell you the data they need to make these decisions. A handy heuristic, once you've started providing data ask the recipients what decisions they COULDN'T make if they stopped getting it. If they couldn't think of any, you're providing the wrong data.

Have a read of what people have found before you. They've written it up so you can learn it quicker than they did.
I'd define myself as a systems thinker, and so what I'd recommend is skewed towards that way of thinking
This guy is good and has a book coming out soon specifically about how data can provide value when analysed properly.
https://www.leanblog.org/tag/process-behavior-charts/
This guy writes well about something most analysts have never heard of it, it's worth an hour of your time and is invaluable. Trust me, browse it.
There's HUGE amounts of brilliant stuff online. One of the best books I've ever read on this is Understanding Variation, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Understanding-Variation-Key-Managing-Chaos/dp/0945320531
It's short, oriented to problem solving and process understanding, and eminently practical.

Your job sounds brilliant by the way, but don't get bogged down in learning software packages. People who receive your output need to know what it MEANS. This can often be left out of fancy pretty graphs. Analysis should produce insight, not just the workings out. Get to know the business and be a business person, not just a data person. Data has no meaning stripped of context, and you should steep yourself in context.