1.3 Test your knowledge on solving problems with data

1. Scenario: Data professionals use different types of problem-solving methods to tackle business challenges.

Consider a data professional at a streaming service that wants to understand why some customers are canceling their subscriptions.

Prompt: Reflect on the different problem types we've covered. Then, complete the following:

• Identify which problem type would be the best starting point for the data professional to understand why customers are canceling.

• After that, explain how the 'identifying themes' problem type could be used to extend the analysis.

• Provide an example of how the 'finding patterns' problem type could be used to discover insights in customer data.

• Finally, explain how the 'making predictions' problem type could be used to help the business make a data-driven decision.

Your answer should have 4 parts and you may answer in a list or a short paragraph.

The best starting point for the data professional is spotting something unusual. This includes identifying data that is different from the norm. This is the best starting point because the norm is customers being subscribed and the anomaly would be customers canceling so they would be distinguishing the data on why customers are cancelling.

Identifying themes could extend the analysis because they would be categorizing data to recognize broader concepts and trends. This would help them see more reasons as to why the customers are canceling

Finding patterns could discover insights in customer data because they would be using historical data about what happened in the past to understand how likely it is to happen again. This would help them see all previous customers that cancelled their subscription and understand the reasons as to how it could happen again.

Making predictions could help the business make a data-driven decision because they would be using the data to make informed decisions about how things may be in the future. This would help them see the data of all customers that are subscribed or have cancelled and decide a range of how many customers the company may have in the future.