SCTR7: Data Science and Analytics

60 Second Book Review: ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’ by D. KahnemanKahneman, D. 2011. Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus, Giroux. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a breath of fresh air and the promise of ‘a new way forward’ for business and commerce. Kahneman, a Nobel laureate in Economics, makes a clear […]

A wrinkle in implementing analytics is that the majority of decision experts and proponents come from a technical, structured thinking background and often give short shrift to issues of leadership and organizational culture, or, at best, wave them away as a problem of upper management. In turn, upper management can often easily assume an ‘if […]

An organizational decision process combined with a culture which invites challenge via experimentation is crucial. Davenport & Harris’s book ‘Competing on Analytics‘ (as well as new title ‘Analytics at Work‘  ) highlights that technology, skills, and process are simply not enough: at some point strong management support and a facilitating organizational ‘culture’ is needed to […]

It is perhaps obvious to say that there are better and worse decision-making processes, tools, and organizational practices.  Each individually can be comprehensively approached; it is the management of their integration, the combination of elements to bring an analytics practice ‘to life’, which is complex.  In particular, beyond tools and processes, there is a growing […]

Organizational decision-making is often framed as a process or ‘life-cycle’ which includes framing, verification, validation, and valorization.  An example is the excellent, short work on making quality decisions by J. Hammon et al entitled ‘Smart choices’ (http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Choices-Practical-Making-Decisions/dp/0875848575 ). It is often the ‘valorization’ process where decisions fail.  The word is obscure outside Europe, but interesting and […]

The guiding purpose of this blog is to explore and discuss issues related to the practice of business analytics, diagnostics, and forecasting in large, complex organizations.  The unique perspective here is to blend both management theory and technical methods in order better to serve active practitioners, be they managers, consultants, or advanced analytics technical experts. […]