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Estimationwarm-up
How many cups of coffee does an office of 500 people go through in a week?
How to approach it
Estimate the share of people who drink coffee at work and how many cups each drinks a day.
How a strong answer opens
“I'll estimate how many of the 500 are in on a given day, the share who drink coffee at work, and cups per drinker, then multiply across the week.”
Outline of a strong answer
Try answering out loud for a few minutes before you open this.
- Share who drink coffee at work
- Cups per drinker per day
- Workdays per week and office attendance
- Add visitors and client meetings
- Multiply drinkers x cups x office days
- Sanity-check: how many coffee machines or urns that implies
Where this question usually goes wrong
Assuming all 500 people are in the office every day, ignoring remote days and people who don't drink coffee.
Learn the method
The approach in five steps in Module 3, Estimation.
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