Data.gov

Recently, I found this cool website, which is essentially a huge data-dump. It has all kinds of data-sets to play around and hone your statistical tool skills. From my six-Sigma training and the subsequent trainings I have given to Green-Belts, I found that the data-sets used in the examples, and practice sessions are very boring and manufacturing oriented. This website, www.data.gov, has some really cool data which can be more meaningful in teaching the analytical & statistical tools to the Green/Black Belts. The website introduction is:

"The purpose of Data.gov is to increase public access to high value, machine readable datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. Although the initial launch of Data.gov provides a limited portion of the rich variety of Federal datasets presently available, we invite you to actively participate in shaping the future of Data.gov by suggesting additional datasets and site enhancements to provide seamless access and use of your Federal data."

"Data.gov includes searchable data catalogs providing access to data in three ways: through the "raw" data catalog, the tool catalog and the geodata catalog. "

I downloaded the "Airline On-Time Performance and Causes of Flight Delays" data-set and started playing around with it. It has all kinds of data, which can be used to make interesting and more engaging case-studies, than the standard age-old examples from manufacturing, cycle-time, etc. still being used in the trainings, where a good majority of people are from transactional backgrounds. Well, I'm working on making something from these enormous data-sets and will put them here soon.

Enjoy playing with the data!!!