Assignment Overview:

For this assignment you will create a high level business plan for a new business venture that will use analytics as the primary driver for success. You will be expected to lead the initiative which requires a clear understanding of the business problem that fills a void that makes this new business venture a worthwhile undertaking. Your leadership in bringing the venture to fruition will be a main component in its success or failure. This assignment will require you to put into practice the main areas of focus that we have developed over the length of the course. Bringing them together in a comprehensive fashion will assist you in understanding the many and diverse areas and requirements for successful leadership in analytics.

Learning Connection:

This assignment is directly linked to the following key learning outcomes from the course syllabus:

Consider the integration of data into the leadership of an organization to achieve stakeholder alignment and collaboration from a leadership perspective

Practice communicative fluency and effective diplomacy within your own business unit by applying effective communication and leadership capabilities

Consider the integration of data into the leadership of an organization to achieve stakeholder alignment and collaboration from a leadership perspective

Develop you own personal leadership model based on the competencies of an effective leader

Create an analysis driven culture within an organization through professional leadership methods

Describe the strategic planning activities that support leading with analytics

Create an analytics program as a change agent in a new business venture

Apply data as one element of decision making, while keeping distance from the notion that data can explain everything.

In addition to these key learning outcomes, you will also have the opportunity to evidence the following skills (see grading rubric) through completing the assignment:

Critical thinking

Creative thinking

Technical competency

Problem solving

Presentation

Assignment Instructions:

Using the CRISP-DM model, agile analytics methodology, analytics techniques, and other tools, you are asked to develop an analytics program as a change agent in a new business venture. You will also describe the strategic planning activities that are necessary to deliver the end result while demonstrating your leadership prowess as you lead with analytics.

Important note: Please be aware that this signature assessment is worth 30 percent of your final grade. You may use your assignments and discussion submissions from the beginning of the class (cut and paste) but please be sure to make changes where appropriate based on the knowledge you have gained

from the class and my grading feedback. Please feel free to refer to examples from our text books; Agile Analytics (Collier, 2012) and Data Science for Business (Provost & Fawcett, 2013) or any other reference material your choose. Please remember citations for your sources.

Step 1. Select a business venture and describe in a few paragraphs its objective.

Step 2. Describe your leadership approach with emphasis on overcoming your weaknesses from the SWOT analysis.

Step 3. Strategically and tactically develop an approach to establishing your new business that includes:

A problem statement that shows an understanding of the problem and the void your new business venture will fill through leading with analytics;

An infrastructure diagram that gives a high level view of the data repositories you will require and how you intend to acquire them;

An overview of the organizational culture you intend to develop (and lead) in your new organization that inspires analytical thinking and drives elegant solutions to difficult problems;

The organizational, functional, and technological foundation you intend to introduce and deploy in your venture;

The process you intend to follow and lead to ensure your staff in all required disciplines are engaged as change agents in improving your business;

The analytical techniques and models you intend to use for leading the analytics initiatives (e.g. regression analysis, classification, etc.);

The evaluation criteria and controls you intend to use to establish the integrity and meaningfulness of the analytical output generated prior to deployment;

Any changes you made to the initial problem statement based on lessons learned during previous iterative cycles (this is expected);

Any conclusions reached regarding the leadership style necessary to bring about change through analytics

This signature assessment assignment must be at least seven double spaced pages but no more than 10 please. Your submission should be presented using the main headings from the CRISP-DM standard as follows:

Understanding the business problem

Understanding the data

Data preparation

Modeling

Evaluation

Deployment

Please remember that this is a leadership course so your submission should focus on how you will lead the team, not necessarily how you will do the work.

Good luck!!