Wanted: Big Judgment for Big Data

By Peter Keers | Published: May 16, 2012

A 2011 report by the Corporate Executive Board, Overcoming the Insight Deficit – Big Judgment in an Era of Big Data, the authors correctly point out the era of “Big Data” (see my blog Big Data: An Elephant in Your Room?) does not mean a parallel leap forward in employee analytical and judgment abilities. In fact, it is arguable that the greater volume of data and the greater emphasis on “fact-based” decision will put organizations at risk due to faulty analyses.

This risk is real according to the authors because they contend less than 40% of employees have access to the necessary “skills and processes” for successfully Read More »

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Lipstick on a Pig: Replicating the Legacy Report

By Peter Keers | Published: May 10, 2012

A common project requirement in the reporting and analytics world is replicating existing reports.

For example, in its first large scale project with OnApproach, a major client requested that over 100 current reports be replicated the first phase.

The reasons seemed plausible:

“These reports are used extensively in Read More »

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Accountable Care Organizations: Implications for Decision Support

By Peter Keers | Published: May 3, 2012

As I noted in my last blog entry, the 2009 Affordable Care Act (ACA) includes provisions to promote Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs).  An ACO is a way for providers to structure themselves to deliver healthcare at a reduced cost while improving quality of care.

Comprehensive measurement of quality data is a necessity for ACOs since Read More »

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Accountable Care Organizations: Data-Based Decisions Driving Healthcare

By Peter Keers | Published: April 25, 2012

Once upon a time, there was a revolutionary model developed for delivering healthcare: the Health Maintenance Organization (HMO).  The idea of an HMO is providers deliver healthcare services to a given population for a set fee.

HMOs in one form or another have existed from nearly the beginning of the 20th century. They hit the big time with the passage of Read More »

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How Do They Decide?

By Peter Keers | Published: April 18, 2012

The April 2012 issue of the Harvard Business Review article “Good Data Won’t Guarantee Good Decisions” described three types of employees defined by ability to find and analyze relevant information:

  1. Unquestioning Empiricists – data-based decision making only
  2. Visceral Decision Makers –intuition is the usual decision-driver
  3. Informed Skeptics – balance facts and intuition (the optimal style)

In my last blog I highlighted the main ways suggested by the article to develop more Informed Skeptics. Yet, how can you assess an employee’s current decision-making style?

The Corporate Executive Board created the following questionnaire to categorize individual analytical style. This might be a useful tool in determining the starting position of an employee prior to training:

1.    Your boss asks you to develop a proposal to launch a new product. You:

a.    Dig up data to generate some initial ideas, talk with your colleagues, and then write the proposal. Read More »

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Building the Data Analysis Army

By Peter Keers | Published: April 11, 2012

In my last post I commented on an article from the April 2012 Harvard Business Review entitled, “Good Data Won’t Guarantee Good Decisions“.  The article suggested organizations can benefit from cultivating analytics-savvy employees.

Two things organizations can do to develop such employees are:

  1. Training in data literacy and analysis
  2. Providing effective tools

Improving data literacy means Read More »

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Developing an Analytics-Savvy Organization

By Peter Keers | Published: April 4, 2012

“They just don’t get it”, is a common frustration expressed by analytics champions who are making slow progress in bringing more fact-based decision- making to their organizations.

A recent article, Good Data Won’t Guarantee Good Decisions (Harvard Business Review April 2012), zeros in on the issue with great insight.

First, three types of employees are identified in terms of Read More »

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Proctor and & Gamble: Creating the Right Analytics Environment

By Peter Keers | Published: March 28, 2012

In a recent InformationWeek interview, Procter & Gamble CIO Filippo Passerini outlined some key innovations P&G has developed to take the organization’s analytics efforts to the next level.

P&G is doing away with the traditional process of determining information requirements, obtaining the data, and developing reports. Believing that the old method was too slow, a faster model was developed. It focuses on creating an analytics-friendly environment providing:

  • video-based collaboration
  • an increased amount of up-to-date standardized data made widely available
  • an increased number of analytics experts

Video-Conferencing

By promoting the use of high-quality video-conferencing, key players can collaborate in real-time regardless of location. Not only do the video meetings allow for a face-to-face experience, but data can be visualized on the same screens for Read More »

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Championing a Data-Driven Culture

By Peter Keers | Published: March 22, 2012

The 2011 MIT Sloan Management Review and IBM study, “Analytics: The Widening Divide” showed how organizations that promote a data-driven analytics culture can create competitive advantage.

The hallmark of a data-driven culture is an expectation that all significant decisions are based on analysis of data. A cultural norm in most organizations is decisions based on intuition or “gut” are as acceptable as data-based decisions. Not surprisingly, the less data-oriented culture is unlikely to document cause-effect outcomes of its decisions so learning from experience is hindered.

A data-driven culture is more likely to make fact-based decisions that lead to increasingly effective actions. Decisions and their outcomes are Read More »

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Sharpen the Saw: Keeping Up with Analytics Innovations

By Peter Keers | Published: March 14, 2012

In October 2011 MIT Sloan Management Review and IBM published a study called Analytics: The Widening Divide. The study noted a number of competencies sophisticated organizations were using to create competitive advantage.

An important competency was deploying new analytics tools and skills.

Analytics technology is rapidly evolving. Even though a particular technology has worked well over the long run, it pays to stay aware of the latest innovations. Organizations that are more aggressive in using newer analytical tools find they are able to Read More »

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