Lesson ProgressPhase 3 of 6
Phase 3Guided Practice
Guided Practice: Launch: Weekend Profit vs. Waste
Use shared data to notice business effects before formal calculation
Guided Practice: Making Sense of the Data
Now that you understand the challenge, let's start working with the data. The first step in any data analysis project is to get a feel for the numbers. We'll use some basic statistical measures to understand the café's sales patterns. This is called descriptive statistics.
Let's focus on the Pastry Inventory Management problem. Imagine your team has the following data for weekend croissant sales over the past four weeks:
| Week | Saturday Sales | Sunday Sales |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 120 | 85 |
| 2 | 110 | 80 |
| 3 | 135 | 90 |
| 4 | 125 | 88 |
Turn and Talk
With your partner, discuss the following questions:
- Looking at the numbers, on which day would you say the café sells more croissants?
- How could you calculate the average number of croissants sold on a Saturday? On a Sunday?
- What challenges might arise from just looking at these averages to decide how many croissants to bake?
Visualizing the Data
Let's visualize this data to make it easier to understand. A bar chart is a great way to compare sales on different days.