Suppose you’ve gotten a cancer diagnosis. Would your business experience help you navigate the care pathway? Larry Neal describes how he applied his Decision Analysis skills to prostate treatment in Eight Lessons from a Decision Professional’s Cancer Decision. When a physician said Neal had a 30% chance of having cancer, but his analysis suggested 95-99%, […]
1. Debiasing → Better decisions Debiasing is hard work, requiring honest communication and occasional stomach upset. But it gets easier and can become a habit, especially if people have a systematic way of checking their decisions for bias. In this podcast and interview transcript, Nobel-winning Richard Thaler explains several practical ways to debias decisions. First, […]
1. Long view → Better financial performance.A McKinsey Global Institute team sought hard evidence supporting their observation that “Companies deliver superior results when executives manage for long-term value creation,” resisting pressure to focus on quarterly earnings (think Amazon or Unilever). So MGI developed the corporate horizon index, or CHI, to compare performance by firms exhibiting […]
1. “A gut is a personal, nontransferable attribute, which increases the value of a good one.” This classic from Harvard Business Review recaps how policy makers have historically made big decisions. It’s never just about the data. A Brief History of Decision Making. 2. A reminder to look for the nonobvious. This analysis examines differences […]
Yikes, evidence-based decisions are taking on water. Decision makers still resist handing the car keys to others, even when machines make better predictions. And government agencies continue to, ahem, struggle with making evidence-based policy. — Tracy Altman, editor 1. Evidence-based home visit program loses funding.The evidence base has developed over 30+ years. Advocates for home visit programs – […]
1. Jason Zweig tells the story of randomistas, who use randomized, controlled trials to pinpoint what helps people become self-sufficient around the globe. The Anti-Poverty Experiment describes several successful, data-driven programs, ranging from financial counseling to grants of livestock. 2. Can an early childhood program prevent child abuse, crime, drug abuse, and neglect? Yes, says […]
1. Evidence standards → Knowing what works → Pay for success Susan Urahn says we’ve reached a Tipping Point on Evidence-Based Policymaking. She explains in @Governing that 24 US governments have directed $152M to programs with an estimated $521M ROI: “an innovative and rigorous approach to policymaking: Create an inventory of currently funded programs; review […]
1. SPOTLIGHT: MCDA, a decision process for everyone. ‘Multiple criteria decision analysis’ is a crummy name for a great concept (aren’t all big decisions analyzed using multiple criteria?). MCDA means assessing alternatives while simultaneously considering several objectives. It’s a useful way to look at difficult choices in healthcare, oil production, or real estate. But oftentimes, […]
1. Evidence → Social RCTs → Transformational change More progress toward evidence-based social programs. The Laura and John Arnold foundation expanded its funding of low-cost randomized controlled trials. @LJA_Foundation, an advocate for evidence-based, multidisciplinary approaches, has committed $100,000+ for all RCT proposals satisfying its RFP criteria and earning a high rating from its expert review […]
1. Great stuff on data-driven decision making in a new O’Reilly book by Carl Anderson (@LeapingLlamas), Creating the Data-Driven Organization. Very impressive overview of the many things that need to happen, and best practices for making them happen. Runs the gamut from getting & analyzing the data, to creating the right culture, to the psychology […]