Strayer JWI599 2022 January Complete Course Latest (Full)

JWI599 BUSINESS ANALYTICS AND CAPSTONE

Week 1 Discussion

Choose a Focus Area for Your Capstone Project

Read the Course Guide, specifically the Capstone Project instructions.

Identify the type of industry or sector in which you are interested in choosing a company for your Capstone Project. For example, tech, healthcare, manufacturing, hospitality, etc. Explain your choice.

Identify a focus area you would like to develop in your Capstone Project. This can be a new product or service, an operational change that would result in significant cost reductions and/or quality or margin improvements, or a major branding or marketing initiative. Why did you select this focus area? What are some of the biggest challenges or opportunities organizations in this sector are facing right now?

As you learn more about the CEO MIndset, what specific issues are you most excited about exploring in your Capstone Project?

NOTE: You should develop your Capstone Project around a focus area you are genuinely interested in and which is relevant to your career. In considering your choices, remember that you will need to gather and analyze real data. Therefore, it is critical that you have access to verifiable sources of information for the industry and focus area you would like to explore.

This week only, post your initial response by Friday, midnight of your time zone, and reply to at least 2 of your classmates’ initial posts by Sunday, midnight of your time zone.??

NOTE: In Weeks 2 through 10, your initial response is due by Wednesday, midnight of your time zone.

Enable the Discussion Notification Reply option and never miss a reply to your posts!

In Blackboard, open the “Global Navigation Menu” on the upper right hand corner of the page. The drop down arrow is next to your name.

Select “Tools” > “Discussion Reply Notifications” in the dropdown menu.

Select “Yes” to Receive notifications of replies for all current and future courses.

Select the courses you would like to receive notifications to your DQ posts.

Click “Submit” to save settings.

 

JWI599 BUSINESS ANALYTICS AND CAPSTONE

Week 2 Discussion

Select Your Organization and Frame the Problem/Opportunity

Building on the sector and focus area you identified in your Week 1 discussion post, select a specific organization for your Capstone Project. This can be a publicly-traded company, a private company, a governmental agency, or a non-profit.

NOTE: You will NOT be permitted to use the same organization you have previously used for a major assignment in JWI 540 or JWI 575.

To prepare for your DQ post:

Research the organization via media searches, annual reports, and the organization’s website. Look for a problem/opportunity that you can analyze through data. Your problem/opportunity must fit into the focus area identified in your Week 1 DQ post. This could be a new product or service, an operational change that would result in significant cost reductions and/or quality or margin improvements, or a major branding or marketing initiative.

In your post:

What is the critical problem/opportunity you will focus on? Why have you identified this particular problem/opportunity?

What sort of data should you gather and analyze to accurately assess the problem or opportunity? Is it sales data, demographic data, product performance data, or another type of data?

Explain why this type of data is needed for this particular problem or opportunity.

How will you obtain the necessary data?

 

JWI599 BUSINESS ANALYTICS AND CAPSTONE

Week 3 Discussion

Gathering and Organizing Your Data

Having identified the types of data you will need, it’s time to gather, review, and organize your data. This is a critical step in preparing to demonstrate to your Board of Directors that there is a legitimate demand for a solution to the problem you want to solve or the opportunity you want to explore.

In your post, answer the following questions:

What sources did you use to gather your data, and why did you use these?

What impact will any gaps in your data have on the validity of your analysis? How will you address this?

How should you organize your data so that important patterns, trends and anomalies are clearly visible?

Which analytical method (Descriptive, Predictive, or Prescriptive – see Davenport & Kim pp. 3-5) did you use to assess your data? Why did you choose this method over others?

 

JWI599 BUSINESS ANALYTICS AND CAPSTONE

Week 4 Discussion

Turning Data into Information

Having framed the problem/opportunity, formulated a testable hypothesis and gathered and organized key data, you are ready to continue your analysis by developing a data story that can be shared with others. To get started, download and review the “Types of Data Analysis” guide from our Week 4 readings, above.

Apply one or more of the following analytical tools to your dataset:

Correlation

Regression

Grouping and Visualization

Variance

Standard Deviation

Explain whether your analysis of the data confirmed or refuted your testable hypothesis.

 

JWI599 BUSINESS ANALYTICS AND CAPSTONE

Week 5 Discussion

Refining Your Data Story

To deliver an effective Board Brief and presentation, you will need to display your data to decision makers in a way that is easy to understand. Respond to the prompts below:

What are the most critical elements of your data story that need to be communicated?  Explain.

How will you organize and share your data so that it tells a clear and compelling story? (See p. 107 of Davenport & Kim for a list of types of visual graphics used to present data)

Select two data display techniques discussed by Duarte in Chapter 6 and/or Chapter 7 and use them to present two important data sets from your analysis.

 

 

JWI599 BUSINESS ANALYTICS AND CAPSTONE

Assignment 1

Board Brief Part A – Framing the Problem/Opportunity

Overview

Effective leaders understand that actions must be based on facts. Which facts are most important, however, depends on how the problem is framed. Failure to adequately define the problem can set in motion a series of misguided undertakings in which irrelevant data are gathered, unnecessary analyses are completed, and unsupported decisions are made. The first step in developing your Board Brief is to craft a clear statement of the problem/opportunity, and then determine which data are most critical to solving that problem. This is your opportunity to begin using the business analytics tools that will guide you throughout your Capstone Project. Instructions

For all assignments in your Capstone Project, your work will be based on the organization you identified in your Week 2 Discussion Question post. In this assignment, you will submit a 2 to 3-page paper in which you will include a brief overview of market conditions and develop a clear and well-focused problem/opportunity statement. This requires you to provide sufficient background on the competitive environment and the organization to accurately frame the problem for your Board. Your deliverables are:

1. Present a brief overview of market conditions, the competitive environment, and the strengths and weaknesses of your organization relative to your competitors. You should draw on one of the methodologies you have studied in the program (such as Jack’s 5 Step Strategy Framework, SWOT, PESTEL, or Porter’s Five Forces) to guide you, but DO NOT present a full-blown market analysis to the Board. Your Board members will already possess significant knowledge of the market and the company, so use this overview to set the stage for the rest of your brief. Distill your overview down to 2 components.

a. First, provide a general overview of market conditions, trends, and big issues. For example, you may begin with a line such as “As you know, we have experienced considerable challenges in this space over the last two years…”

b. Then, summarize the competitive environment. Open with a sentence such as “Our biggest competitor ABC has made bold steps to develop X and has made significant gains in market share in Y. This has presented us with a number of challenges…”

2. Problem/Opportunity Statement

Following your overview, identify the specific problem or opportunity that, if properly addressed, will have a significant positive impact on the success of the organization. This will include your “testable hypothesis” for which you will gather and analyze data to validate in your next assignment. To accomplish this:

a. Define a clear problem or opportunity that addresses what is important to the organization in order to meaningfully improve its competitive strength. Note: It is expected that you will refine the problem/opportunity statement you drafted for your Week 2 Discussion Question, leveraging the feedback you received from your classmates and professor.

b. Identify key data and metrics you will study that are relevant to addressing the problem/opportunity.

c. Identify stakeholders who will be involved in addressing the problem/opportunity. At this stage, you do not need to name specific people, but you must identify functions, departments, geographical areas, etc., that will be impacted. You must also explain the nature of the potential impact.

d. Include relevant information on previous experiences or findings related to this problem/opportunity. This information may be noted in an appendix if that is more appropriate for context and flow.

 

JWI599 BUSINESS ANALYTICS AND CAPSTONE

Assignment 2

Assignment 2: Board Brief Part B – Data Analysis

Overview

The second part of your Board Brief picks up where the last one left off. Having accurately framed the core problem/opportunity in Assignment 1, you will now turn your attention to collecting, organizing, and analyzing the data you are using to test your hypothesis. You are not yet ready to propose a specific action plan for your business. You will focus on evaluating what data you have and don’t have, and on identifying patterns, trends, and anomalies. Because you can never have complete data, your analysis must acknowledge what you know and what you don’t know. But, even with incomplete data, your actions must be reasonable given the time frame and resources you have. Those actions – your strategic plan – will be developed in Assignment 3.

Instructions

For this assignment, you will build on your first assignment by including an additional 3 to 4 pages to present your analysis of the data. Your submission must include the work you did in Assignment 1 and must provide relevant and quantifiable data, models, calculations, and analysis. Use the topics below to organize this section of your Board Brief:

1. Data Sources and Reliability

a. What data were the most critical to the analysis of the problem/opportunity you identified in Assignment 1? Explain.

b. What sources did you use to gather the data?

c. How reliable and complete are the data you are using? What steps did you take to validate this?

d. What data are unknown (or unknowable) at this stage? How does this impact your analysis?

2. Data Tools and Analysis

a. Drawing from the “Types of Analysis” guide and other resources from the course, what tools and techniques have you used in your analysis? Why did you select these?

b. Applying the analysis tools to your selected data, what patterns, trends, and anomalies did you uncover?

c. How do these patterns, trends, and anomalies shed light on the problem/opportunity you identified?

d. Leveraging your work in the Discussion Questions and the guidance from our course materials, include charts, tables, and/or other visual supports to ensure that your data tells a clear story that your reader can easily understand.

3. Conclusion and Action Items

a. What does your analysis tell you about where you should focus your efforts to drive meaningful improvement?

 

JWI599 BUSINESS ANALYTICS AND CAPSTONE

Assignment 3