Starbucks
Research Proposal (10% of final grade)
You should select an analytics topic that interests you personally and/or is of use to your organization. It can be related to your occupation, a hobby, something you read about in the newspaper, a company you do business with or frequent. Pick a straightforward topic. As a topic gets more complex, typically more data is needed to analyze it. In a 7 week course, the sooner you can identify your data sources and the fewer data sources you need, the more likely your project will be manageable.
Your research proposal should be two to three double-spaced pages. It must include the following sections:
Cover Page to include the Title of the Research Proposal, your name, etc.
Introduction section to include: Background, Objectives, Methodology, Data Requirements, and Scope
Background: Explain the context of your issue. Include a description of the issue or opportunity to which management might need answers, why it is significant to management, and how it might affect the organization for which the analysis will be developed.
Objectives: What, specifically, is the goal of your analysis, for example, optimize an inventory policy, simulate a customer queueing process, or mine data to discover consumer preferences for a set of products?
Methodology: Specific type of analysis to be used (simulation, data mining, etc.) with a justification for the methodology used.
Data Requirements: What data will be needed to support this analysis and at what level of detail? Do you have timely access to the data you need?
Scope: Define what specific business unit, timeframe, system or process that the analysis will apply to. State what this analysis will cover and what, if any, aspects of the problem that the analysis will exclude from consideration.
Potential Managerial Benefits: What value will the information be overall to management including any limitations, and how you anticipate it will help in their decision making process.
