ANLY699

The objective of this discussion is a bit confusing as it seems there may be some missing information. However, I will provide my best attempt at giving the correct answer. My take on the instructions is to provide three ideas that I may want to use for the final project. I will use the questions provided and answer them below:

1 & 2. Identify three projects in order of priority. Justify the order. Brief description of each project.

The first project could be to forecast sales during different holidays and decide which departments may need to increase their stock in order to meet the demand. Another project could be to determine factors that contribute to employee retention and the correlation between when and why they choose to leave a company. Lastly, another project idea could be to explore the stock market and predict what it will do in the next 6 months, year, and so forth.

I chose these topics in this order specifically because of my own interest in knowing the information. The first two are tied as far as priority goes. My goal in the future is to be my own business owner, therefore forecasting sales will be beneficial when that time comes. This project would review datasets from a store’s previous years in sales to first identify trends, then use that information to forecast. Retention is also intriguing to me as I am currently in the military, but am always considering the possibility of getting out. I find it interesting what makes people decide to stay at a job, what makes them want to leave, and if there are reasons that are seen more frequently than others. The reason the stock market is the last choice, is I am interested in this solely because I pursue it as a hobby. It is an interest of mine, but as of right now, it is not my main source of income and I would just like a way to understand the trends of this market.

3. Expected duration of projects.

All three projects will likely take the remaining 14 weeks of the course to gather the data, apply the analytics, and write a paper with the detailed findings. I will need to also review all previous coursework to find the best methods and approaches that I have learned throughout my degree.

4. Availability of resources in terms of data, software tools etc.,

A couple of the resources in terms of data can be found on open sources such as government databases (Marr, 2016), Kaggle, and through various company records such as Amazon and Walmart. As far as software, Excel and RStudio have numerous capabilities that could help guide these projects. They are also easily accessible and are either free downloads or are granted through the school resources.

Resources

Marr, B. (2016, February 12). Big Data: 33 Brilliant and Free Data Sources Anyone Can Use. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2016/02/12/big-data-35-brilliant-and-free-data-sources-for-2016/?sh=1fbd34adb54d