Business Case Studies & Business Publications

What Are the Odds?

Fairchild, Gregory...

Case

What Are the Odds?

Fairchild, Gregory B.; Sinclair, Safiya; Corum, Kimberly

G-0655 | Published July 22, 2021 | 9 pages Case

Collection: Darden School of Business

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Oscar Ramirez, an employee at the Whole Nine Yards Construction & Landscaping Company, has been assigned to manage the remodel of Mayor Lawrence’s family estate, which locals call "Lawrence Lair." One member of his team is his nephew, Martin Fuentes, who is in need of both summer work and a mentor. In this case, Fuentes is running late to work because he stayed up late the night before trying to compute several descriptive statistics using the temperature data he’s collected from his uncle’s ion machine. He tries to figure out the quickest route to work given the traffic light cycles. Once Fuentes makes it to work, he’s introduced to Mayor Lawrence, who asks him to calculate several probabilities about his upcoming debate and his likelihood of winning the next election. This case is designed to be taught in a math literacy course for non-MBA audiences. Although it can be used alone, it was created as the fourth in a module of five cases total. It builds on the learnings in “The Living Roof” (UVA-G-0654) and is followed by "How to Become a Minus" (UVA-G-0655).

This case is intended to align with the topics under the Statistics & Probability domain in the Common Core State Standards Mathematics Standards. In particular, it introduces students to the following ideas: - Measures of central tendency - The counting principle - Determining probabilities - Interpreting data