Analysis Plan

Why do we need an Analysis Plan?

Suppose you are the manager at showflix, a video streaming company that connects video content creators and consumers wanted to identify major factors contributing to low subscription rates of showflix rates in the USA.

Now how will you go ahead after getting the business question? Or how will you make sure your plan makes sense and covers every aspect?

The problem can be solved using the second step of the BADIR Framework, the analysis plan that is a roadmap to achieve the end goal. Using an Analysis plan, you can precisely align all the resources altogether that helps to set the timeline of the project, in addition, gives you the line of sight to impact and the specific path to follow.

The Analysis Plan should have these unique five features mention below:

5 Key Building blocks of the Analysis Plan

An analysis goal based on a real business question that helps you to build the hypotheses, so you can collect the data you require to prove and disprove the hypothesis and apply the right methodology.

Analysis goal

The analysis goal realistically is more specific and precise. In this step, we create an analysis goal based on the business questions, equally considering the timeline and the specific requirements to be added to the end goal. And the analysis goal should be aligned with a real business question. While building the Business analysis goal you should also focus on the impact on business.

In this case of showfix, the Analysis goal is to determine the subscription rate of customers. Also, which factors could increase the revenue growth and the insights needed within a month.

Hypothesis

At the beginning of solving any problem, we come up with various hypotheses. Similarly in Analysis Plan you have to decide the hypothesis that represents an idea to solve the problem or cause of the problem. And the factors by which this problem could arise or could resolve. Also to prove and disprove the hypotheses you need to test the business hypotheses.

In the case of Showfix, Your hypotheses could be:

1. Indian consumers are more inclined to watch free content online rather than pay a fee for the same.
2. Non-availability of Hindi local TV shows and movies.
3. Due to the non-availability of payment options such as Net Banking, Debit Card, etc.

Data Required

Now we have the hypothesis and know in which format the data will be required to prove and disprove the hypotheses.

Nobody has perfect data so there are many things we should consider while gathering the data for analysis:

1. The data will originate from multiple sources like internal, external(websites, APIs, etc.) and in various formats, so we have to tie all the data.
2. When we are dealing with time, It could be in timestamp format so we need to convert it into the desired format.
3. To collect data from the website parsing needs to apply to convert the raw HTML data into a more readable form.
4. Heuristics can lead to poor decision making based on a limited data set.

In the case of Showfix variables could be:

Methodology

The methodology is defined as the technique or methods that we implement for business analysis.

Many methodologies exist for different problems, but the most common methodology is given below:

• Aggregate analysis

The aggregate analysis is used to simplify a large amount of data in a meaningful way. Above all when we are comparing the mean or when we are focusing on low and high value in data. It is also called descriptive analysis.

• Correlation analysis

Correlation analysis is a method to find the relationship between the two or more features, that how one feature can impact by altering another feature and how strongly they relate to each other. So correlation analysis helps in discovering the positive and negative correlation between features and how that relationship can impact the business growth.

• Trend analysis

Trend analysis helps in predicting the future trend based on past event trends over a period of time. Time-series data will be used to predict future trends.

For Example — In trading, trend analysis gives an idea of profit and loss that has happened in the past over a period of time and what will be happening in the future.

• Size/estimation

We are applying size/estimation technique when we don’t have the internal data to estimate the business problem. We need to rely on external data and assumptions.

For example — How many fans are running in New York City? So to solve this problem, you can assume some features like total population, categorize population by class, number of hospitals, number of schools, number of stations similarly you can add more assumptions in it.

• Predictive analysis

Predictive analysis is an advanced technique used to predict future outcomes and trends based on real-time data and historical data. By applying predictive analytics in business intelligence, organizations have the opportunity to reduce the risks and to increase revenue growth. Predictive analysis fulfils a critical role to influence the business outcomes or results and you can make a better decision that impacts the business growth.

For example — The company wants to identify those consumers that are likely to abandon a service or product using consumer past activity, here predictive analytics can predict the customer churn before the feature launch.

• Segmentation

Segmentation is the process of dividing the group into subgroups based on the characteristic. In business analysis, segmentation helps to get to identify your customers needs better and determine how you can best meet those needs by your product. We can utilize clustering techniques like K-means clustering.

For example — A car manufacturing company sells a luxury car brand, let’s say Maserati, so this company would likely target an audience that has a higher income rather than the audience that has low income. Here, segmentation helps in grouping the target audience for the product.

In the Showfix case, you will use aggregate and correlation analysis.

Project Plan

Considering all the four building blocks now we can create a perfect project plan. In this step, you will specify the project goal, what resources we need, what are the tasks and how we can achieve them, finalize the budget and timeline for task completion and risks that could occur.

Furthermore, we prioritize work in distinct phases based on the degree of hypotheses.

Towards the impact

This is the step towards the impact of the Analysis Plan to make business decisions. You need to engage in an internal conversation on roles, responsibility and resources and also an external conversation with stakeholders about which approach you are applying to solve the problem and what could be the other possible hypotheses.

Present your analysis plan in the kickoff meeting to ensure analysts and stakeholders are on same page.