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1 & 2

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

The first project I discussed is to forecast sales during different holidays and decide which departments may need to increase their stock in order to meet the demand. This would rely solely on sales history of different products. Then, if the items are not already sorted by department, they would be categorized using generic department information. Another project was to determine factors that contribute to employee retention and the correlation between when and why they choose to leave a company. This would use historical data as well to identify if employees leave at a higher rate during certain times of the year, how long employees tend to stay in different departments, and would also evaluate surveys completed upon exit. Lastly, another project idea was to explore the stock market and predict what it will do in the next 6 months, year, and so forth. This would use market history to see if there are trends during certain times of the year and what happens when big events such as COVID take place.

I chose these topics in this order specifically because of my own interest in knowing the information. However, I also think they would be useful for my goals in different industries that I would like to pursue one day. My first goal in the future is to be my own business owner and forecasting sales data will come in handy, even if it involves other businesses' information while getting started.  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. I also want to know this information for business purposes as well because if and when I create my own company, I want to ensure not only do people stay, but how to keep the right people for the job. 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. In the future, however, I would like this to one day become a primary income.

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. Researching for a project will take me a lot of time, especially because there was a lot of information covered in previous classes and I may have to learn to become more proficient in some of the techniques.

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 provided in a list by Forbes (Marr, 2016), Kaggle, and through various company records such as Amazon and Walmart. There is a lot of data that can be used, especially as far as historical data is concerned. Many companies put out old information for those who want to use it. 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. These software types will be my primary sources to create the analysis for the final project.