This course provides an analytical framework to help you evaluate key problems in a structured fashion and will equip you with tools to better manage the uncertainties that pervade and complicate business processes. The course aim to cover statistical ideas that apply to managers. We will consider two basic themes: first, is recognizing and describing variations present in everything around us, and then modeling and making decisions in the presence of these variations. The fundamental concepts studied in this course will reappear in many other classes and business settings. Our focus will be on interpreting the meaning of the results in a business and managerial setting.