Business Context

FinServe tracks daily customer-support handling time because average performance alone can hide operational instability. A team lead claims two support teams have the same average handle time, but Team B is less consistent.

Problem Statement

Use variance analysis to determine whether Team B's handle-time variability is significantly higher than Team A's. Then explain why variance analysis matters operationally even when means are similar.

Given Data

A random sample of daily average handle times was collected over 12 days for each team.

Additional test settings:

Requirements

1. State the null and alternative hypotheses.
2. Compute the F-statistic using the sample variances.
3. Identify the numerator and denominator degrees of freedom.
4. Compute or approximate the p-value and make a decision at $\alpha = 0.05$.
5. Explain the business significance of variance analysis in this setting.
6. Briefly comment on whether the difference in means changes the variance conclusion.

Assumptions

• Daily observations are independent within and across teams.
• Handle times are approximately normally distributed.
• The samples were collected under comparable operating conditions.