Dan Stafford Final Project: Basketball Japan League Player Efficiency Ranking Tool

Executive Summary

The Basketball Japan League (BJL) is professional league and the purpose is to provide entertaining basketball for fans, and earn money for the teams. It was founded in 2005 with 6 teams; the league has expanded rapidly, and today there are 21 teams. Due to rapid growth the game rules, league administration, and head coaches are constantly changing. Following the end of the 2010-2011 season 13 of the then 16 head coaches lost their jobs, including the coach of the championship team.

What does it take to be successful as a coach? The NBA, which is the world authority on professional basketball is moving increasingly toward analytics—the statistical analysis of success drivers—in order to maximize winning. NBA Coaches that are successful pay attention to analytics to guide decision making. NBA.com and ESPN.com both list efficiency ratings (EFF) and performance evaluation ratings (PER), in addition to clutch ratings and other important measures. The BJL website contains nothing beyond basic player stats. Coaches in this league are blind to analytics regarding their own team as well as their opponents.

What I have built is an EFF ranking system for the BJL. This can be used by a coach to see the most effective players on their own team as well other teams. This data is useful in making decisions about playing time, line-up dynamics, and as a starting point for studying other trends that go beyond data such as strategy formulation.

The EFF ranking system pulls cumulative season statistical data for every player in the league, and then runs that data through a formula that adds positive contributions and subtracts negative ones to produce a raw contribution number or EFF. The EFF is then divided by minutes played to give the efficiency per minute (EFF/MIN) rate, this rate can be used to compare players across the board. The final step is to rank the players in order from highest EFF/MIN to lowest. 

• http://files.gove.net/shares/files/14w/dstaffo2/Final_Project_Dan_Stafford.pdf
• http://files.gove.net/shares/files/14w/dstaffo2/BJL_EFF_Ranking_Final_Project_Dan_Stafford.xlsm

WEB QUERY: ORGANIZING ONLINE CLASSIFIEDS

Executive Summary

I love spending time in the outdoors and finding a good deal. Since I grew up in Utah, I have used KSL classifieds to buy and sell several items. It is a unique website that connects buyers and sellers. It also has more users and greater reliability than Craigslist. For this project, I created a webquery that could help me search for items using the search tools of KSL. I plan to use this to collect information on postings I am interested in such as, backpacking equipment, ski tickets, and classic Nintendo games. Because I have a background knowledge in this equipment and typical prices, I could visually sort out the good buys and make purchases for my own use or to flip.

This project would allow a user to search the KSL classifieds for any specific item. The user could edit their search results and have displayed for them all the postings meeting their search requirements. If a user had a specific interest in a certain item, they could click on a link to the right of the post to access the internet and find more information. I feel this is a great solution for people that want to quickly review and compare postings on the KSL classifieds.

Alex Alard

• http://files.gove.net/shares/files/14w/ddeserae/VBA_Project_Write-Up_Alex_Alard.pdf
• http://files.gove.net/shares/files/14w/ddeserae/Classifieds_Search_-_Alex_Alard.xlsm

BYU Study Abroad Itineraries

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Background

The BYU MBA Program offers at least two opportunities each year for its students to travel abroad.  These international experiences provide access and exposure to global businesses and cultures, which maximize education for all participants.  The MBA Program hopes these trips motivate students to focus on a global career and earn the BYU sponsored Global Management Certificate.  One of the requirements to obtain this certificate is an international experience; therefore, a plethora of BYU MBA students have gone on an MBA Study Abroad trip to earn the certificate as a step towards a global career.

Project Purpose

After traveling on the MBA Europe Study Abroad trip in January 2014, information, including travel (including flights), daily tourist excursions, business visits and names of business contacts was not distributed to those traveling on the trip.  This lack of information put the students at a distinct disadvantage, specifically when meeting with businesses and contacts.   We were not able to research the companies/individuals prior to meeting with them; therefore, questions posed  during meetings were haphazard and showed a lack of research and knowledge.  This project was developed to combat this lack of knowledge.

The ultimate goal was to build a project that can be adapted for use on future MBA Study Abroad trips so the participants obtain critical information about business visits and activities.  This project could potentially be a small part to an MBA student making a favorable impression on a business leader, while on a Study Abroad, that leads to a job offer in a foreign country.

Project Overview

The project builds individual itineraries for each participant on the MBA Asia Trip, which takes place in April and May 2014 and includes visits to five countries over 21 days.  The itineraries contain daily, and sometimes hourly, details for each country that will be visited.  All names of companies, business leaders, networking contacts as well as logistics like flights, hotel information, transportation from airport to hotel, when meals are provided.  These components are built into one itinerary that is saved as a spreadsheet and eventually shared with the participant. 

Project Solution

The key to the success of the project was obtaining the correct information.  The collection of all of the necessary information allowed the itinerary to be built using an automated system.  The automated system feeds details, specifically flight numbers and departure/arrival times, into the specific country itinerary and then produces and saves an individual spreadsheet into a desktop folder for easy organization and dissemination.  Now each participant has all of the information necessary to research companies, a better understanding of what to pack, when free time is available and when they have a scheduled flight.

Final Project Paper
Final Project Code

Apartment Comparison Tool

For the past 4 years, my wife and I have been managing a condo here in Provo.  One of the challenges we face every year is deciding what is the appropriate rent and security deposit to charge our students for the upcoming year. Historically, we have had to log onto the BYU Off campus Housing Portal, search through the different listings, look up each listing’s individual information, and then see how that apartment compares to our apartment. This process not only takes several hours, but it is extremely tedious.

This semester as I prepared to go through this process once again, I realized this was the perfect opportunity to automate something using VBA to try and save time.  I created the Provo Apartment Comp Tool to help automate and simply the comparison process.  The tool logs onto the BYU web portal, navigates to the listings page,  searches for listings that meet the correct criteria, pulls the data into excel, and then re-formats the data in a simple and easy to view comparison page.






Writeup: http://files.gove.net/shares/files/14w/pflclub/Final_Project_Writeup.pdf
Rental Comparison Tool: http://files.gove.net/shares/files/14w/pflclub/RentalCompTool.xlsm

RECIPE BOOK CREATOR AND MEAL PLANNER

Business Description:

Amy Collier is a registered dietician who recently graduated from Brigham Young University. During her studies, she had access to expensive proprietary software that allowed her to create recipes, to plan meals, and to create automated grocery lists. Now that she has graduated, she does not currently have those resources when she consults with clients. Buying the software is not currently an option with her budget, so she needs a functioning substitute to be more effective at her job.

At home, she likes to pick and choose recipes from a large number of physical recipe books and online sources. Because of this, it is often difficult to find specific recipes and remember which recipe book or file folder included that particular recipe. Planning meals and creating grocery lists can also be a challenge. Amy suggested that I make one program that would meet all of these needs.

Solution:

In order to address all of these needs, I created “RecipePro” in Excel VBA code.

Creating a recipe:
I created a simple and easy-to-use user interface that allows the user to enter in recipe information and pictures which are then transferred to a separate saved worksheet with a professional format.

Recipe Book Generator:

Once the user has created a few recipes and saved them, the recipe book generator allows the user to pick which saved recipes should be included in the new recipe book. The user can also choose to customize a simple cover for the recipe book. Once the user is finished, he or she can save the workbook for later use.

Meal Calendar:

The user has the option to create a calendar and assign specific recipes to different meals on a particular day. There is also the option to import and edit a previously created calendar.

Grocery List:

Once the meals are planned for the week, the user can print out a grocery list of the items needed to make the planned recipes.

Final Project Write-up
RecipePro

Suruchi Agnihotri_OD&L Repository for M&As

Executive Summary:

Organization Development and Learning is a Human Resource Specialty which is a deliberately planned, organization-wide effort to increase an organization's effectiveness and/or efficiency and/or to enable the organization to achieve its strategic goals [1]. Over my internship, I and my team were asked to build a tool for this department which will be used by HR people assigned to a Merger/ Acquisition (M&A). M&As are complex; although they happen all the time, yet study after study puts the failure rate of mergers and acquisitions somewhere between 70% and 90% [2]. HR Processes play a big role in the success of M&As. With the organization that I interned with, the problem was there was no standard repository to guide HR generalists, HR Directors, or even business managers to guide through the process. Everyone acknowledged that the issue is important and needs to be handled, and HR people involved in previous M&As had made tools, gathered best practices for themselves, but they were not managed centrally, and learning was not being shared. My internship team created a model of the ‘would be OD and L repository’ after interviewing and collecting data from more than 50 people. I recreated the toned down version of the same repository.

1. Best Practices repository

Important ODnL processes in M&As are 1. Change Management 2. Culture 3. Organizational Design 4. Communication

M&A process timeline may be segregated as: 1. Due Diligence (Pre-integration) 2. Integration Planning (Pre-integration) 3. Month1(Year of Integration) 4. Months 2-12 (Year of integration)

These two dimensions are captured in the tool using a 2*2 matrix format. The processes that fall at the intersection of these dimensions are fetched and displayed from the already existing database. See this figure for the sample. Only the first row has actual phases as there might be some legal bindings

**Implementation also has been done for the first row (Change) only.

2. ‘Submit Best Practices’ tool

After an M&A is finished, it is required for the HR personnel involved in that particular project to submit all the best practices or any new learning.  The ‘Submit Best Practices’ Tool provides an interface for the HR personnel to accomplish this task. The person in the role submits best practices through the tool, which got to a ‘Draft data’ sheet, which is later analyzed by the Repository admin. Repository admin is notified via email on any new submission. The process of looking at submissions and adding to actual excel database is a manual process (looking and judging the validity of submission, removing duplications, adding in proper format). It is out of scope of this project.

3. ‘Search Merger Information’ tool

When a new HR person is assigned to an M&A project, he/she might need information about the previous M&As of the company, and the people involved in that. This is a very useful process for learning. Search merger Information tool lets the user search on the basis of Region, Merger Type, Year, or a combination of these. The search returns corresponding M&A names, and on selecting a merger name and searching further, Merger Details are shown. No editing is possible on this tool.

Links:

http://files.gove.net/shares/files/14w/sur14/ODnL_repository_for_MnA.xlsm

http://files.gove.net/shares/files/14w/sur14/ODnLRepository_for_MnA.pdf

Brooks Benson

The “Option Value Calculator"

Every investor and every MBA student will eventually run into the problem of how to value a stock option.  The former Director of the BYU MBA Program, Craig Merrill, says that every MBA student must learn how to value a stock as part of his or her MBA experience.  More importantly, however, Professor Merrill says that every MBA student must learn how to value a stock using a binomial pricing model.  But, there is more than one way to value an option, including the use of the Black-Scholes formula, which complicates the task. 

I have taken several classes that required the students to build either a Black-Scholes or a binomial model to price options.  These basic models have completed the task at hand, but were clunky and did not allow for variable inputs.  For example, often the models would not allow the number of sub-periods before expiration to be altered.  This is an important variable in any option calculation.  Moreover, these models would only value a call or a put independently, but not both together for comparison.  In the end, these models were hard to use and only spewed out limited data.

Most recently, Professor Thorley, of BYU’s Finance Department, asked the students of his Investments class to build a model that would value a European call option.  As a student of that class, I decided to take the project much further and build a model using his template and VBA that would value both a put and call option for the same stock.  By clicking on a single button, the “Option Value Calculator” will allow you to enter the necessary inputs into a user form, and by clicking “okay”, the model will automatically build out the binomial trees for both the call and put option.  The model will also generate the put and call values using the Black-Scholes formula, allowing the user to compare values for each method.

As a result of the model, the complex task of pricing an option can be completed at the click of button.

• http://files.gove.net/shares/files/14w/bbenson8/Option_Values_Spreadsheet_Brooks_Benson.xlsm
• http://files.gove.net/shares/files/14w/bbenson8/Option_Value_Model_Brooks_Benson.pdf