Introduction to Formulating Hypothesis
Welcome to the session on 'Formulating Hypothesis'.
Now, you would have a clearer idea about the way you should ask the questions in an interview. To solve any problem, you need to understand the business first and then the problem and the implications associated with it. Finally, you should be well aware of what the customer wants from you. All these things were covered in the previous session. In the next video, Soudhakar will tell you about the topics covered in this session.
Let’s move to the next step. When you understand the problem, you need to explore the reasons that may be behind it. Suppose your company is trying to figure out the reasons for poor performance over the last quarter. In a particular interview (using the 5 WHYs), you reach a conclusion that some policies were revised in the industry which was left unattended. So what do you do now?
If you think that you have identified the problem, you are mistaken here. It is just one possible reason for the problem that the company or client is facing. There can be multiple reasons that are driving poor performance. You can suggest that the branched WHYs can be helpful here but the framework lacks a structured approach. Also, regarding the one reason that you found, first you need to verify whether there is any data that supports it and then employ your resources to solve the issue. In case you don’t test and proceed with the solution, it is possible that there was a different reason behind the problem. All your efforts would then go in vain.
Therefore, you need to realise two things here:
- When you are exploring possible reasons for any problem, you need to cover all the aspects of it. For this, you will again come across various frameworks that can be applied to follow a structured approach.
- Also, the possible reason that you discovered is what you call a hypothesis. A hypothesis is a possible explanation which has been prepared on the basis of limited evidence and needs to be validated by further investigation.
Hence, this session will deal with multiple frameworks to help you build hypotheses covering as many domains as possible.
People you will hear from in this session
Subject Matter Expert:
Soudhakar Elumalai
Data Scientist Consultant, SAP
SAP is a multinational software corporation that makes enterprise software to manage business operations and customer relations. Soudhakar, with over six years of experience, has worked across various domains such as product marketing and strategy, business analysis and development and competitive intelligence.
Industry Experts:
Amit Ganguli
Senior Product Manager, Microsoft
Microsoft is a multinational technology company that develops, manufactures, licenses, supports and sells computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers and related services. Amit, with over 11 years of experience, is proficient in business analytics, product management, marketing, sales and technical expertise in enterprise software and IT services.