What you'll learn:
- Build a basic analytics skill set crucial to small business success
- Learn and practice charting techniques to visualize data
- Understand variability - what it is, why it's killing your ability to recognize meaningful trends, and how to measure it
- Learn why the shape, or frequency distribution of data is important
- Practice finding frequency distribution of data sets using histogramming techniques
- Learn simple tips on data collection and organization
- Understand how to choose key performance measure(s) unique to your business
- Create a model by "characterizing" those key business performance measures
- Establish a performance baseline for your business
- Learn methods and strategies to plan and implement change
- Learn how to use a fishbone diagram proactively when planning change
- Mathematically predict how long it will take to get statistically significant results
- Learn to practice discipline and vigilance during change to reduce external influences
- Understand and internalize that correlation and causation are different
- Understand what "confidence level" means, and how much confidence is reasonable to expect
- Learn step by step how to conduct a t-test on before-and-after data sets to see if they are different in a statistically significant way
- Learn how to interpret t-test results
- Understand the Pareto technique to create a long term success plan by prioritizing change
- Understand why incremental failures can be constructive, and how to leverage that data to best advantage
- Practice all the skills and techniques taught, start to finish, on two project businesses (using workbooks)
This course teaches basics of business analytics, and translates that knowledge into practical application. Students will come away from this course knowing how to apply simple analysis tools to characterize key performance measures of their business both before and after a strategic change, and to expose and quantify statistically significant results even in the most variable business climate.
Students will learn that the critical need to differentiate a business introduces a complication: business strategies that work for the competitors might not work for them. A bit of trial and error is necessary. By designing a strategic approach and applying analytics as taught in this course, students will put their small or solo business on a steady upward trajectory.
