Tag Archives: Data Quality

The Decision Wobegon Effect

The Decision Wobegon Effect

May 15, 2013 by

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In his book The Most Human Human, Brian Christian discussed what Baba Shiv of the Stanford Graduate School of Business called the decision dilemma, “where there is no objectively best choice, where there are simply a number of subjective variables with trade-offs between them. The nature of the situation is such that additional information probably won’t even help. In these cases – consider the parable of the donkey that, halfway between two bales of hay and unable to decide which way to walk, starves to death – what we want, more than to be correct, is to be satisfied with our choice (and out of the dilemma).”

 

Change = WIIFM > WMETP

Change = WIIFM > WMETP

May 08, 2013 by

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My previous post about change management, which advocated nudges not mandates, received an excellent comment from Karen Way: “What I’ve found that works to nudge people into accepting data quality as part of their norm is to demonstrate the benefit to them, the WIIFM (what’s in it for me) factor. This is especially true…

 

Getting Schooled on Measurement

Getting Schooled on Measurement

May 01, 2013 by

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In previous posts, I explained how measuring is intrinsically fuzzy and what is being measured is intrinsically fuzzy. In this post, I want to take on the common adage: “you can’t manage what you can’t measure.”

 

Bursting Your Filter Bubble

Bursting Your Filter Bubble

Apr 24, 2013 by

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In a previous post about data visualization, I discussed how our expectations can distort the data we visualize a lot more than we may realize, causing us to mistake dashboards for magic mirrors reflecting back our own image of what we want our data to show us.

 

Use a No Brown M&M’s Clause

Use a No Brown M&M’s Clause

Apr 17, 2013 by

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There is a popular story about David Lee Roth exemplifying the insane demands of a power-mad celebrity by insisting that Van Halen’s contracts with concert promoters contain a clause that a bowl of M&M’s has to be provided backstage with every single brown candy removed, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation to the band.

 

Decision-Making and the Invisible Information Chain

Decision-Making and the Invisible Information Chain

Apr 12, 2013 by

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Business leaders and managers at all levels within an organisation make hundreds of important decisions throughout the year and nearly all of them are driven by data.

 

Don’t Mess with Data

Don’t Mess with Data

Apr 03, 2013 by

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In Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein recounted the story of the campaign to reduce littering on Texas highways called Don’t Mess with Texas.  Prior to launching it, Texas officials were enormously frustrated by the failure of their previous, well-funded, and highly publicized advertising campaigns, which attempted to convince people that it was their civic duty to stop littering.

 

Stop Poor Data Quality STOP

Stop Poor Data Quality STOP

Mar 27, 2013 by

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In the 19th century, the harnessing of electricity brought about the means to transmit signals via electrical telegraph.  The term STOP was used in telegrams to mark the end of a sentence because punctuation cost extra.  Therefore, a telegram requesting an end to poor data quality would literally have been sent as “Stop Poor Data Quality STOP” — and if you think data quality wasn’t an issue in telegraphy, stop, and think again.

 

This isn’t Jeopardy

This isn’t Jeopardy

Mar 20, 2013 by

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Imagine a political debate between two candidates where one candidate answers every question quickly, beaming with confidence, and the other candidate answers every question slowly, and with less assertiveness in their response.

 

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