Final Individual Homework Assignment
Instructions: The following 10 activities relate to concepts, tools, and applications in Data Analysis (EDA), Data Visualization and Data Storytelling. This assignment is worth 60% of your grade.
It is due on Feb 24, 2022 11:59 PM.
Provide answers to all 10 activities in one single PDF document. Include your name, date (no cover page necessary) and any references used. Do not include the questions in your document, just the answers are fine. For one of the questions, a tableau file is required for submission. Do not Zip these files together, as the PDF component will need to go through a plagiarism check.
Page limit: 10 pages MAX.
Activity 1: Storyboard: Technary Case Study and Data Analysis
You are a statistician for a large manufacturing company, Technary. The company produces a product, product X. Many other competitors also produce product X. You are presenting to a group of statisticians and mathematicians at your company. The goal of your project is to present ways your company can gain a competitive edge in this industry as it pertains to the production of product X. Assume the audience has a HIGH level of knowledge in statistics and reading/interpreting advanced plots.
For the following case, create six slides: 1 title slide, 3 conflict slides, 1 big idea slide and 1 resolution slide (landing page) with three subsections. Do not put all 6 slides on one page if the text and/or visualizations are not legible. Here are the requirements:
Slide 1) Use an effective and attention-grabbing title for the title slide.
Slide 2) Situation 1: Use tab 1 (Technary Part A) in the excel. The ideal weight of product X is 450 units across the industry. This means consumers of product X prefer this product to be exactly 450 units no matter which company they buy it from. However, the companies sell varying weights of this product because of the inefficiencies of machines that produce this product. In Tab 1, you have sample weights of 1000 products produced at Technary and 4 different competitors in the span of one hour (assume you stood at the production line at each of these 5 companies, measuring/recording the weight of 1000 products). You want to compare the distribution of weights across these 5 companies to assess the quality of machines at each company. More specifically, you want to comment on the precision and accuracy of your machines relative to other companies. Use the correct statistical plot. Use headings/subheadings and explanatory text in your slide. Accuracy refers to how close a measurement is to the true or accepted value. Precision refers to how close measurements of the same item are to each other. After you are done this slide, use your analysis and findings to build your big idea and support your resolution.
Slide 3) Situation 2: There are people needed on the assembly line in certain areas of the production of product X. The speed at which these employees need to work depends on the speed of the belt. When there is a high demand for Product X, the speed of the belt is increased. If a semi-finished product waits too long on the assembly line (if it is not addressed by an employee), it can get spoiled and needs to be thrown out. Normally, the company is okay with some waste. In tab 2 (Technary Part B), you have the number of waste products per week in a year. It is considered normal waste if the waste in a week is within 2 standard deviations of the mean. More or less than this number means the process is out of control. Comment on whether or not the level of waste is ever out of control. Use the appropriate statistical plot. Follow the same instructions as you did for slide 1. Use your analysis and findings to build your big idea and support your resolution.
Slide 4) Situation 3: A special chemical called Elerium-128 gets used at every step of the production process of Product X. All companies must use Elerium-128 in their production of Product X. You believe that Elerium-128 is not being used efficiently in all the processes and compared to other companies, your usage of Elerium-128 is off. In tab 3 (Technary Part C), you can see the percentage of total Elerium-128 being used at various stages of the production process at Technary and a few competitors. Show the correct plot and follow the instructions in slides 2 and 3.
Slide 5) The big idea goes here. It must be negatively framed.
Slide 6) Creating a landing page with resolutions that hopefully address the conflict introduced in slide 2, 3 and 4. Tie it back to the business question and big idea. In the slides that would come after this resolution landing slide (not required for this activity), you would, ideally, explore these ideas further, in a Minto Pyramid style format. But these further resolution steps are not required.
This purpose of this exercise is to show how data analysis and data visualization can be used in the earlier parts of your data presentation (setting, characters, conflict).
Activity 2: Build the appropriate graph: Life Expectancy vs Income
For this activity, you will submit one slide using the data in the tab Activity 2 Income v Life Expec.
You are tasked to create the appropriate visualization to compare the relationship between Income (GDP per capita) and Life expectancy (years) of various countries across two time points (1800 and 2015). You will need to show both of these time points. Furthermore, you will also need to encode a third variable, population size, and how that has changed for each country across the two time periods.
Instructions:
Create a slide with your visualization.
Use an appropriate headline to highlight the main relationship.
Use an appropriate subheading to comment on the below:
Highlight the country that had the largest increase in life expectancy from 1800 to 2015.
Highlight the country with the largest population in 2015.
Highlight the country or countries that showed a decrease in income from 1800 to 2015.
Use explanatory text if appropriate.
This is an advanced graph. A combination of two graphs. Think about how many variables you are asked to represent. Think about the two graphs I discussed in class: one to highlight the association of three quantitative variables and the second to highlight differences between two time periods or a before-and-after. You do not have to use all the countries in the dataset. Focus on a few interesting ones and use contrast to highlight the ones you like. But make sure to include the answers to above.
Activity 3: Declutter + Gestalt Principle (Connection): Power outage Hurricane Irma/Wilma
Redraw the messy Hurricane Irma/Wilma graph below to improve it. Use the data in the tab Activity 3: Hurricane Irma Wilma. Think about choosing the best graphical form and maximizing the data–ink ratio. You must use Gestalt Principle of connection (effectively) in your revised visualization. Use the information provided about the audience and the context of the discussion to make choices that focus the audience on the key comparison. For this activity, submit only one slide with the visualization and any other detail you want to include.
Power outages following Hurricanes Wilma and Irma
| Context | An introductory slide as part of a longer presentation |
| Audience | Community leaders seeking an update on how well Florida recovered from Hurricane Wilma as compared to Irma |
| Communicator | A trusted representative from the US Energy Information Administration, which measures issues related to US energy infrastructure |
| Goal | Indicate that Hurricane Irma left more customers without power than Hurricane Wilma, but recovery from hurricane Irma has been faster |
Activity 4: Gestalt Principles (Enclosure) and Preattentive Attributes (Color): CloudBoom Consulting
For this activity you will be creating two slides using the data in tab: Activity 4 CloudBoom and the information below.
You work as a management consultant for CloudBoom Consulting. You recently acquired a new client: a B2B cloud services company that produces two products, A and B. The client is trying to understand more about the customers of each product, and where there are opportunities for growth.
Slide 1: Use a visualization to explain how you would segment customers. Use the customer, ownership and usage data to segment your customer list. You must use Gestalt Principle of enclosure (effectively) on this slide to drive your point.
Slide 2: Show another visualization, this time showing opportunities for growth. This is an open-ended visualization. Use the data to show how you can grow revenue. You must use the preattentive attribute of color (effectively) on this slide to drive your point.
Remember to follow all the other elements of effective slide design – clutter, contrast, heading, subheading, and/or useful explanatory text.
Data is from trailing 12 mos
CN = Customer Number
PAO = Product A Ownership
PBO = Product B Ownership
PAU = Product A Usage
PBU = Product B Usage
Product Usage is measured in the company’s proprietary consumption measure. There are no free trials.
Activity 5: Minto Pyramids and WIIFT (understanding the audience): Making the Case at Craigstone.
Part 1:
Using the case facts below, select a preferred travel provider. Identify the situation and the conflict. Then, craft a Minto pyramid outlining the argument in favor of that travel provider. Submit one Minto Pyramid.
Case background
Craigstone is a fast-growing management consulting firm that employs roughly 250 people with offices in North America, Europe, and Latin America. The company’s headquarters is in Boston, Massachusetts. The company experienced consistent growth over its first three decades. The first year of declining revenue in over a decade was in in 2020, due to the economic impact of COVID-19. Craigstone emerged from the crisis with its core business intact, but it is now more focused on controlling costs than ever before.
Even though Craigstone’s travel expenses are 60% lower per person than they were before COVID-19, client complaints about travel costs have doubled. Clients pay Craigstone employees’ travel costs in addition to the fees they pay the firm. Craigstone has always allowed employees to book airline flights, hotels, and rental cars on their personal credit cards through whatever website or travel agent they choose. The firm’s largest client, which is also its only Fortune 100 client, has threatened to end its growing relationship with the firm as travel costs have started to exceed 15% of their consulting fees. The company’s growth plan requires the firm to add other very large clients to its client roster. Though travel costs have traditionally been passed on to clients, competitive firms are increasingly absorbing travel costs in their fees and attempting to reduce the cost to clients without lowering prices.
To address travel costs, the firm has created a committee of five partners and an analyst to analyze the firm’s travel policies. The goal is to recommend ways to reduce costs and streamline policies that have until now been handled in an ad hoc manner.
The committee’s findings
After some initial discussions within the committee’s membership and with others across the company, the analyst compiled the data and presented it to the partners on the committee. The data suggests that consolidating travel spending through a single partner could allow Craigstone to realize substantial savings. After talking to several large travel vendors, the committee has come to a consensus that the choice is between two serious contenders: LanaTravel.com and Canadian Express. Both offer savings on travel for firms that book at least $5M worth of business through them. With both services, consultants would continue to select their own itineraries and have access to all major airlines, hotels, and transportation services.
In comparing the travel agencies, the analysts compiled the following facts
LanaTravel.com: Lana is a four-year-old fast-growing start-up that combines a travel booking app for users with a reporting app for Craigstone’s finance team. The app is exceptionally well-designed, and even though the company is not profitable, it has been funded by prominent venture capital firms.15 The younger employees at Craigstone have expressed strong enthusiasm for the app’s usability, since they prefer to book and manage travel via a phone app. Many like that the app also allows them to manage all their travel reward programs in one place. Lana offers live phone support during East Coast business hours but only guarantees 24/7 support via the chat function in their app. Consultants frequently change travel plans and have complex itineraries. More senior members of the firm say that they need to be able to call a live human any time of the day or night. This is a major concern for them. Lana negotiates discounted rates with airlines, hotels, and other large travel providers. They say the average company saves 6% on travel costs by using them, and they guarantee at least a 4% savings. User reviews report that the app is slow and glitchy in China, which is a major growth area for the business, but many firms similar in size to Craigstone have adopted the service and report that they are satisfied with it. Some Craigstone partners have expressed concern that Lana may not be around long term. They don’t want to go through this process again.
Canadian Express: CanEx, as it is known, is a major financial services company with a global credit card business in addition to its travel business. It is a large and stable company that has been in business for over 170 years. They are the industry standard for the world’s largest consulting firms. They have a full-featured website for booking and changing travel (though it is not as robust and easy to use as Lana) and excellent live support. Agents are available by phone 24/7 from anywhere in the world. The company guarantees a 5% discount on travel booked through them and has another, related feature that could save Craigstone even more. Craigstone could gain an additional 1% reduction on all travel expenses charged through CanEx credit cards. Finance says that moving the company to CanEx cards would automate travel reimbursements. These currently take over a month, which is a substantial burden on many employees. CanEx says its credit card perks are competitive with the best reward cards on the market, but switching between credit cards to take advantage of different rewards from different companies is a hobby for a meaningful number of consultants. They consider it an important employment perk.
Case adapted from a case originally developed by JoAnne Yates and the Management Communications Group at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Part 2:
Choose two of the audiences below and create a Minto Pyramid for each one. Identify and state the situation and the conflict. Focus your main idea around a WIIFT that would appeal to that audience. Make reasonable assumptions about what each audience would care about. Then adjust your key points and supporting evidence (lower levels of your pyramid) to support your revised WIIFT and new main idea. Submit two Minto Pyramids.
Scenario 1: The founding partners
You are the analyst on the committee. You and the chair of the committee have done most of the analysis and have decided that CanEx is the best choice for the firm. The chair has asked you to present the findings and recommendation to the other four partners on the committee.
All five of the partners on the committee have been at the firm since its founding thirty years ago. Three of them are in their later sixties, and the rumor is that they will retire soon. Building this firm has been the most significant accomplishment of their careers. They consider its continued health their personal and professional legacy. During the research process, one partner asked you to show her how to book a flight on her phone. She commented that the last time she personally booked any travel was 1999, right before they hired a full-time assistant for her.
Scenario 2: The junior partners
You are the analyst on the committee. You and the chair of the committee have done most of the analysis and have decided that CanEx is the best choice for the firm. The chair has asked you to present the findings and recommendation to the other four partners on the committee.
Most of the partners on the committee are in their late thirties, and all of them were promoted to partner within the last three years. The rumor within the firm is that membership on the committee is both a privilege and a burden. Only partners recognized as rising stars were asked to participate. The firm policy is that new partners have five years to prove their ability to sell new business, or they are asked to leave the firm. These meetings represent time that could be spent cultivating relationships with existing clients and pursuing new ones. In every meeting you’ve attended, most of the committee members are on their phones for most of the meeting.
Scenario 3: The future firm leader
You are the chair of the travel policy committee and the most senior partner on the committee. Working with the analyst, you’ve determined that CanEx is the best choice for the firm. You are addressing the other partners on the committee to get them to approve your choice.
In the past year, you were responsible for 20% of the firm’s revenue, more than any other partner. You are in line to be the next leader of the entire firm. Since you are on the partner promotion committee, you know all the other partners on the committee well and were involved in their promotions to partner. You consider two of them to be protégés. You hope to see them become the future leaders of the firm (after you).
You asked to head this committee because you run the relationship with the firm’s largest client. After the client’s CEO threatened to end its relationship with Craigstone, you promised that you would get travel costs under control. You’re convinced that runaway travel costs are going to limit the ability of the firm to sell projects to other Fortune 100 companies. Over the years, you’ve seen clients focus more and more on travel expenses. You are tired of taking calls from third-year accountants just to ask you about a Sam Adams some twenty-two-year-old expensed on a 10 p.m. flight back to Boston after a week in Omaha.
Scenario 4: The analyst meeting
You are the analyst on the committee. The committee has recommended the firm adopt CanEx as the company’s official charge card, and the full partnership has approved the decision. Since you were on the committee, the partners have asked you to explain the decision to select CanEx at the Boston office’s analyst meeting. Presenting at this meeting is an honor and a signal that you have a bright future within the firm.
The committee chair implied that your real job is to convince your peers to adopt and use their CanEx credit cards for all business expenses. The firm’s official policy is that only charges on CanEx cards are reimbursed, but no one believes it. The announcement was buried in a monthly email newsletter, and partners have been telling their teams that no one is going to make someone one year out of school shoulder the cost of a $3,000 business trip, regardless of the card it goes on. Besides, gaming credit card offers and points programs is considered both a common hobby and one of the job’s perks. It helps make up for the punishing amount of travel required.
There are twenty other analysts in the Boston office. You are generally on good terms with all of them, but your close relationships with partners on the committee has caused some jealousy. Being the one to explain the policy doesn’t seem like it will help your reputation as a sycophant.
Scenario 5: The analyst lunch
You are the analyst on the committee. The committee has recommended that the firm adopt CanEx as the official charge card of the company, and the full partnership has approved the decision. The monthly email newsletter contained an announcement of the policy, but the meetings to explain the policy don’t start until next week.
It’s one of those rare Fridays where everyone is in the office. All the analysts who started with you at Craigstone try to get lunch together whenever most of you are around. If you can get to Aceituna—the Middle Eastern place around the corner—before 11:45, you can usually assemble enough tables for all eight of you to sit together.
When you’re midway through your shawarma, someone asks, “So what’s the deal with this CanEx nonsense? First this job steals my evenings and weekends, now they’re taking my credit card perks. Is this because the partners who have assistants to do everything for them can’t even figure out how to book a hotel room on their phones?” As you put down your pita, you notice that all the side conversations at the table have stopped. Everyone is looking at you.
You will be submitting 3 pyramids on total for this activity. You may use any technology to build the pyramid, keep it simple, make sure the text is legible.
Activity 6: Tableau Dashboard: Technical Support Dashboard
Building a Technical Support Data Dashboard in Tableau. Bogdan’s Express, a chain of sporting goods stores in Washington, wants to construct a technical support data dashboard in Tableau to monitor how effectively its technical support group deals with IT problems. Management is primarily interested in the time it takes the IT support group to respond once a problem has been reported (response time) and how long it takes the group to resolve the issue after the initial response by the IT support group (time to resolution) over the most recent four months. They would like to be able to review the IT group’s performance by date, type of technical problem (email, hardware, or internet), and office (Bellingham, Olympia, Seattle, or Spokane).
Each reported problem is immediately logged and issued a case number, and the data
collected by Bogdan from its relational database includes the case number, date, office, type of technical problem, response time (in minutes), and time to resolution (in minutes). They have also created a new field for the month during which the problem was reported. Note that both Response Time and Time to Resolution only include time that elapses during normal business hours. Bogdan’s staff would like the dashboard to feature:
●● A line chart of average response time across months by office
●● A line chart of average time to resolution across months by office
●● A clustered bar chart of average time to resolution across offices by type of technical problem
●● A stacked cluster column chart of number of problems reported across office by type of technical problem
●● They would also like to create a new variable: total time to close (in minutes). This is the sum of the response and resolution time per request. They would like to see a distribution of this variable: total time to close. This is the total time spent by an employee to address the entire request. Choose appropriate bins. They would like to set a benchmark in minutes (using only this dataset) that says going over this value is “too costly” or “an expensive support issue” or “critical issue”. They would like approximately 10% of the issues in this dataset to be considered critical issues. At what time in minutes would you set this benchmark? How would you show this? (They want the number of critical issues calls for this data somewhere on the dashboard).
The data and these charts are available in the tab Activity6 TechSupport Dashboard
Recreate these graphs in Tableau and follow the principles of effective dashboard design. Submit a Tableau Workbook file (twbx file). Keep the tableau workbook clean and do not include answers to any of the other activities. No powerpoint is needed for this activity. Provide a screenshot of the dashboard in your final PDF document.
Activity 7: TOP T Framework: Airline Traffic
Your team has just handed you the slide below, and you have to present to your company’s senior leadership team in five minutes. Take a moment to:
Write down the topic.
Circle all the elements on the graph to which you want to orient the audience.
Decide if the headline given is an appropriate point. If not, write a better point.
Write out the transition to a hypothetical next slide (you can choose whatever content you want to come next).
Then present the slide as if you support all the design choices. Remember, in real life you won’t always have time to craft the perfect slide. Use this as a chance to practice presenting with confidence. Lack of confidence in delivery can accidentally signal lack of confidence in the analysis. Practice displaying confidence in the analysis through confidence in the delivery.
To improve faster, record yourself and play it back. Ask yourself the following questions to make sure you are presenting the slide clearly:
1. How clear was your topic?
2. To which elements of the graph did you orient? Which ones did you miss? What terms or choices warranted more explanation?
3. How could you have stated the point more clearly?
4. How could you have improved the transition to the next slide?
Compare your choices to the sample scripts after the slides. Notice what you like about the sample scripts. Notice where you think they could be improved. There’s no one way to present a slide. Cultivate a sense of what you think works by observing other people’s choices.
Use complex graphs when the underlying data is complex and the complexity is critical to your point.
For the slide below, it’s important to know that RPK (Revenue Passenger Kilometers) is a measure of airline activity. It measures the number of paying passengers (revenue passengers) multiplied by the number of kilometers they flew. An airline that runs a single 1,000-kilometer flight with 100 passengers has an RPK of 100,000 (1 flight * 1,000 Km * 100 passengers). An airline that carries 200 passengers twice as far has an RPK of 400,000 (1 flight * 2,000 Km * 200 passengers).
Assume that you are delivering this slide in 2015 and practice the discipline of fully orienting the audience to every element and calculation on the slide.
Then, fill out the following table and include it in your answer sheet. This table is the only required deliverable for this activity, not the questions posed above.
| Topic | |
| Orient | |
| Point | |
| Transition |
Activity 8: Audience Confusion Matrix: Demand for Elerium-128
You have found yourself in the situation below and need to share your thoughts in a meeting with your company’s senior leadership team. You prepared your boss with your thoughts but have not had time to connect with anyone else in the meeting. You assume it’s the first time everyone other than your boss will learn about this. For the situation:
Identify which of the four scenarios best describes this situation. Use the scenario to inform your response.
Write out how you want to frame the discussion.
Propose next steps. Assume that senior management expects next steps to accompany anything that reaches their level, but that the purpose of these next steps is to jump-start a discussion. The proposed next steps do not have to be perfect, they just have to help senior management think about the actions they might take.
Your team has been predicting that new market entrants will increase the demand for Elerium-128—a critical raw material for your product—and drive up its price. The price of Elerium-128 has been declining for years, but based on your analysis, the company has been spending heavily to stockpile it. Through unrelated mismanagement, two new market entrants went bankrupt, and the price of Elerium-128 continues to decline.
Answer these questions and include the solutions in your answer sheet.
What type of scenario is it? Mark an X in the matrix below.
How would you frame the discussion?
What next steps would you propose?
Activity 9: A/B Test in Marketing: Hypnotism at Nimble Goods
Nimble Goods, LLC is a Brooklyn-based American online and catalog retailer, founded in 1999. The company sells small production gifts for children, teens, and adults, home accents, jewelry, accessories, kitchen and home entertaining items, art, games, books, food and drink, and DIY kits.
The marketing team has decided to experiment with hypnotism as a way to boost sales, and they need analytics’ support to evaluate this exciting new program. The hypnotist charges $1.00 per customer hypnotized and, in accordance with strict professional ethics, will only work with existing customers who opted in to being hypnotized at checkout. The hypnotist claims that the effect will last for two weeks and will, on average, increase the amount they spend during that period on “Benevolent Brownies” (retail price is $35). The marketing team ultimately conducts an A/B test to determine if hypnotism is an effective strategy for increasing “Benevolent Brownie” sales, and randomly chooses half of opted-in customers to be hypnotized. Using the data in the tab Activity 9 A-B Test Markerting, evaluate the effectiveness of this marketing campaign. Based on the results, how would you advise your colleagues on whether and how to proceed with hypnosis-based marketing? Prepare one slide that can stand on its own, with the data visualization, heading, subheading and an other explanatory text.
Activity 10: Storyboard Resolution: Scentologic Case Study and Data Analysis
Scentologic Inc is test marketing a smart product that fills any home with a time and season appropriate aroma. Scentologic’s home device is an outgrowth of research from the MIT’s Olfactory Sciences Program (Course 19) and is its first foray into the consumer market after years of developing cutting edge scent technology for industrial and commercial use.
Energizing scents in the morning have been shown to lead to a more productive day. Soothing scents in the evening, are proven to make it easier to fall asleep and stay asleep. The home device detects room size so as to fill the room with just the right amount of aroma, and adjusts based on the number of occupants in the room. It also offers seasonal smells — pumpkin spice in Fall, huckleberry in Spring.
Consumers purchase the device and a monthly subscription for the smell service. Every month, customers receive a cartridge, similar to a toner refill, that can be used to generate any scent. Scentologic has set the initial subscription price at $12 a month and is still testing different prices for the device. Each cartridge costs $1.50 to manufacture and ship. Scentologic is conducting market research in various test markets to determine potential demand based on device prices ranging from $100-$400. The device costs $350 to produce. To build the device, Scentologic must pay $300K annually to the manufacturer in addition to the cost of production.
After extensive work and a year of sales in select test markets, your team and management are comfortable that you have a solid baseline prediction of how Scentologic’s consumer device will perform nationally over the next five years at various device prices and a $12/month subscription rate. This is based on ongoing sales in several test markets. Management isn’t ready to set the final device price yet, but in the meantime they have asked you to evaluate the impact of several additional scenarios.
You are asked to evaluate each of the four scenarios below. Over the last three months, you have designed and run small tests for these scenarios on top of the pricing tests currently being run. You have taken those results and projected the impact of each scenario on sales and gross profit for the entire company over the next five years (fill in the excel sheet: Activity 10 Scentologic Profit). Management is interested in the profit impact of each scenario as a whole as compared to the baseline. Scentologic defines a change to be material if its impact on expected gross profit is greater than 5%. Anything less than that is considered noise.
Data for each scenario is in the tab Activity 10 Scentologic Profit.
Use that information to craft a communication for the following situation:
Audience: Scentologic Senior Management Team
Deliverable: Create 4-5 slides max with 1 big idea, 1 resolution landing page, 2-3 detailed resolution slides. The format for the detailed resolution slide(s) is open; You may use any visualization.
Your presentation should
Remember that even though management picked these scenarios, that was three months ago
Remember you are not asked to present any setting, context, or conflict slides because of the specific nature of the case. When making the resolution, have these things in the back of mind.
Provide both findings and next steps based on each scenario
Avoid making device pricing recommendations. That will be decided by a different team at a different meeting.
Not fabricate additional analysis. Management wanted a fast read out, and this is what you had time to do
Keep in mind that changes less than 5% are considered noise by this team.
Scenario 1: Change the Device Color Shell
Scentologic discovers that they can get a discount on a part that is identical to one they currently use for the product casing, except in a different color. The cheaper part is dark grey, rather than a lighter, more metallic grey. The colors are very close, and the change reduces the production costs from $350 to $300. No one on the team thinks consumers will notice or care about the change.
Scenario 2: Increase Advertising
Scentologic is considering an increase in advertising to drive increased demand. They believe that their consumers are likely to stay up-to-date on technology, and that more advertising placements will increase awareness and drive increased demand.
Scenario 3: Change Manufacturing Locations
Scentologic’s manufacturer has a plant with the same capabilities in Detroit as their current facility in Arlington. The Detroit factory has greater long-term capacity to produce Scentologic’s device. Scentologic has decided to do a pilot run at the new factory, when they are relatively small before they need the larger capacity. They do not expect a change to the products from the Detroit facility.
Scenario 4: Increase the Subscription Cost
Scentologic believes that it has the opportunity to capture more value by increasing the subscription fee. The company worries that the $12/month subscription price positions the product as “cheap” and will scare off customers. They expect a subscription price increase to impact demand, and they want to understand the impact.
This purpose of this exercise is to show how data analysis and data visualization can be used in the later parts of your data presentation (resolution steps).
Congratulations you finished your individual assignment!
You applied your data analysis, data viz and data storytelling skills in key business areas:
Data Science, EDA, Descriptive Analytics, Statistics
Business Communication, Persuading with data, & delivering/defending your data
Marketing, A/B testing
Pricing/Planning Analysis
Revenue Analysis
Economics, Product Demand and Supply
Management Consulting
Manufacturing and Process Control
Visualizations in the Everyday World (News/Media, Weather Reports/Hurricanes)
Final Individual Homework Assignment Rubric
See the following assessment rubric for the final individual homework assignment. No more than 10 pages long. Because each activity is different, not all criteria will apply at the same time.
| Activity 1: 15 points | |
| Activity 2: 7 points | |
| Activity 3: 8 points | |
| Activity 4: 8 points | |
| Activity 5: 12 points | |
| Activity 6: 15 points | |
| Activity 7: 5 points | |
| Activity 8: 5 points | |
| Activity 9: 10 points | |
| Activity 10: 15 points | |
| Total (100 points) |
| Criteria | Exceeds Expectations | At Expectations | Below Expectations |
| Considers Strategy Appropriately | Assignment displays particularly keen insight into audience needs. The strategy to answer the activity is sound, all parts of the question are thoroughly explored in the space allotted. The data analysis is exceptional. | Assignment mostly makes appropriate choices in tone, structure, and focus given the intended audience, credibility of the author, expected response, channel, and nature of the message being delivered. Data analysis is satisfactory but could be better. | Choices in the Assignment appear to misunderstand the needs of the audience. Not all of the questions are answered sufficiently. Very little evidence of a strategic solution. Poor data analysis. |
| Structure: Logical & Clear with Next Steps | The Assignment has a rigid style and structure, key points in a concise manner, sections with elegant transitions, and a recap of key points at the end. There are no significant gaps in logic. The student identifies next steps that lower the barrier to action for the audience. | The Assignment has a clear introduction, sections, and conclusion. The student transitions effectively between them. Any gaps in logic do not seriously undermine the Assignment. The Assignment includes a preview and recap of key points as well as some next steps. | Gaps in logic or weaknesses in structure impact the effectiveness of the arguments. These can include lack of clear sections and transitions, unclear previews of key points, unclear recap and conclusion, no next steps, or significant gaps in horizontal or vertical logic. |
| Structure: Focused on a clear “Big Idea” that tells the audience “What’s in it for them” | The student shows an exceptional understanding of audience needs in the choice and framing of the big idea and all sub-points around the benefits to the audience. | The Assignment has a big idea that connects the overall point to some benefit to the audience. The sub points are not consistently framed around benefits to the audience. | Argument points are not clearly framed around a single “big idea” that articulates the key benefit to the audience. |
| Content: Best practice visual design | Graphs maximize data-to-ink ratio, clearly support the headline on first glance, guide the eye to the key data via design, and show as much complexity as needed to convince the audience, but no more. The choices made show insight into the needs of the audience and the integrity of the data. Slides show clear evidence that every design choice has been made specifically to support the content. | Graphs support the headline and show care in their design. They do not distort the data. Slides show some care has been taken to make design choices that support the content. | Graphs fail to conform to best practice in notable ways. Assignment slide design does not show evidence of design choices that support the content. |
| Content: Data is credible and effective | Data and argument are intertwined in a way that feels organic and substantially bolsters the argument. Data is very credible and provides strong support to the argument. Evidence of a Minto Pyramid style structure. | Data is credible and provides reasonable support for the course of action recommended. Minto Pyramid style structure mostly followed through. | Data is misinterpreted, distorted, or stretched beyond the findings. Source is either not credible or not robust enough to support the argument. Minto Pyramid style structure mostly absent. |
| Delivery: Used TOP-T to explain data | The student shows exceptional understanding of TOP-T and is able to use it seamlessly to guide the audience through the data shown. | The student shows a solid understanding of the principles of TOP-T in order to explain data. | The student does not consistently use the framework of TOP-T to explain the data. |
| Does not distorts or misrepresent data |
Data is not distorted or misrepresented |
Some data is not distorted or misrepresented | Data is distorted and/or misrepresented |
| One PDF file | GrdRed | |
| Tableau File | GrdRed | |
| Page limit | GrdRed | |
| Submitted on-time | GrdRed/Per day | |
| Student submitted their own work, no signs of copying/plagiarism | Pass/Fail | |
| TOTAL | 100 |
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