Your Task
• This assessment is to be done individually.
• A business project case study is provided below.
• You will be applying concepts related to analytics project risk and justification, predictive project analytics (from the DATA4600 workshops and readings) to a business case study. You will also be discussing team inclusiveness and succession planning.
• Your case study report is to be submitted as a Microsoft word file via Turnitin
Assessment Description
Business case study: Stitch Fix: The future of Smart Fashion In the past award winning and other fashion designers were responsible for making clothes. Inspiration can come from nature, life on the streets of large cities, culture, and maybe even architecture. Stitch Fix has decided to let artificial intelligence do all the hard work and design clothes for modern wardrobes. Machine learning algorithms use customer feedback to create clothing designs that appear to fit demand and desire of individuals. This is essentially the personalization of the fashion industry. Millions of data points translate into recommendations and personalized styles of garments.
The company started with data from San Francisco, California and has spread throughout the world. One of the team has had an inspiration after seeing animal pyjamas on another website. In response to this, a new project team is being created at Stitch Fix to do a project looking at the feasibility of selling pet clothing and accessories online.
The executives are not yet convinced that the project is worthwhile. They have suggested that you work with Deloitte’s predictive project analytics team to gain insight into the risks of such a project and how best to make it succeed. As an incentive to perform really well, the team have been told that succession planning will be occurring and some of them are in line to lead new projects. Case study Instructions
Part A: Predictive Project Analytics
a) Reflect on the predictive project analytics (PPA) that you learnt about in
week 7. Explain how the five stages of PPA will apply to the animal clothing project. The stages are
I. Stakeholder Interviews and structured document review
II. Inherent risk and complexity assessment (how would the complexity profile look)
III. Predictive analytic project review
• Also suggest what other types of projects could be compared with this one
IV. Analysis and synthesis (aggregation of output)
V. Report findings
Part B: Cultural fit and inclusiveness
You will have to add new team members to the project. Explain how you could promote inclusiveness within the team so the new members feel welcome, and how you will attempt to understand if the new members are a good cultural fit within the company.
Part C: Tuckman’s Theory
Apply Tuckman’s Theory to the development of the new Stitch Fix project team in terms of hypothetical examples of relationships and decisions of the team at each of these stages; forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning.
Part D: Succession planning
As an incentive to perform really well, the team have been told that succession planning will be occurring. Explain how you will perform the succession planning (i.e. apply the different steps). Explain the benefit to the company of succession planning.
Part E: References and structure
• Include a minimum of five references
• Use the Harvard referencing style
• Use appropriate headings and paragraphs You will be given a maximum of two marks for this section
Video Instructions
Make a 10 minute video explaining the following,
a) The process you went through to prepare your report. What steps did you take?
b) What part of the report did you find most difficult?
c) What was the most useful reference? Why?
d) Explain the most useful reference
e) Also explain how you could promote and justify the current project.
