1.6.2: Critical Thinking Questions
- Page ID
- 58282
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Critical Thinking Questions
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A retail company's CEO says: "We already have reports showing our sales numbers. Why do we need analytics beyond descriptive?" Make the case for investing in diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive analytics by describing a specific scenario where each would add value beyond basic reporting.
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The chapter states that data professionals spend approximately 80% of their time on data cleaning and preparation. Why is this the case, and what would happen if organizations tried to skip or shortcut this step? What strategies could reduce the time spent on cleaning without sacrificing quality?
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Consider a hospital that wants to reduce patient readmission rates. Walk through how you would apply the data-to-insight lifecycle to this problem, describing what would happen at each stage and what challenges you might encounter.
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The boundaries between data analyst, data scientist, and data engineer roles are increasingly blurring. Some companies hire "full-stack data professionals" who do all three. Argue for or against this trend. What are the advantages and risks of combining these roles versus keeping them separate?


