Data has come in from the collection effort. Like many initiatives carried out in business, the data
Question:
Data has come in from the collection effort. Like many initiatives carried out in business, the data provided to your team came from another department associated with the strategic planning arm of the company, using data collected externally as well as mined internally. The data is not exactly what your team had intended to collect, but given time constraints and budgets, your boss who assigned the research has asked you to do what you can with the available data and seek to answer management and research questions as best as you can. Conduct a team brainstorming session to review the data. Then, carry out the following activities and answer the associated questions:
- Use descriptive statistics on the data set to gain an understanding of the ?big picture? of the data.
- Include in your analysis any descriptive statistics that, in your view, characterize the data such as:
- Measures of central tendency (mean, median, mode, or all as appropriate)
- Measure of variance (Standard deviation)
- Plots: Is the data normal? Other, such as skewed or ranked?
- Trends, outliers, or other areas of interest (plot as necessary)
- What is interesting or informative about this data?
- To what extent could this data answer the research questions we have developed? What other questions would this data enable us to answer?
Fundamentals of Cost Accounting
ISBN: 978-0077398194
3rd Edition
Authors: William Lanen, Shannon Anderson, Michael Maher