Assignment Task

Your organisation is facing a problem. Your manager has decided that the problem

can be solved by analysing a data set. You have been asked to do the data analysis

and report your findings and recommendations.

For the data set, choose one of two options.

Use a data set from an organisation you are involved with.

Use a data set provided by your lecturer.

An "organisation you are involved with" could be your employer but does not have to

be$.$

You may NOT use a published data set, e$.$g$.$ that you found by web search, unless

instructed to do so by your lecturer. This is to reduce the risk of unfair practice.

You MUST use data that already exists. You MUST NOT create new data, because

you don't have ethical approval to collect new primary data.

If you choose to use a data set from your organisation, you MUST have the consent

of a manager in the organisation. You may be asked to disguise the data if it is

commercially sensitive$.$

If you are using a data set from your organisation, you must construct a scenario

which contains the problem, along with a question that can be answered by

analysing the data set. You may ask colleagues, such as your manager, for ideas

about a suitable scenario.

An example of a business problem is falling revenues from sales. The question

could be: "Why are sales falling? The data set to analyse could be the last year of

unit product sales for all product lines across all channels.

If you are not currently with a suitable organisation, or you have no access to a data

set which you can analyse, you must email your lecturer, who will provide a data set

you can use.

Part $1$

Summarise and characterise the problem that needs a solution through data

analysis. Formulate a question that will be answered through analysis of the data

set.

Part $2$

Critically analyse the methods that appear to have been used to gather the data.

You may make assumptions. For example, you could assume that the data set was

created from a survey of customers, so you could critically analyse the survey

design, execution and sampling.

Part $3$

Execute appropriate data analytics activities to answer the question you created in

Part $1,$ and present your findings and recommendations based on your analysis.

Notes

Because of the nature of the assignment, your report may contain lots of numerical

information. Such numbers do NOT count to the word quota. You may also put

numerical data in appendices, which also do not count to the quota.