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Two more execs on data analysts in the executive suite

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An insurance executive I quoted a few weeks ago in this space spoke heresy: Not only do most data analysts he’s known lack the polish for presentations to execs, even worse was too narrow a point of view for leading an organization. It’s the Analytics Gap.

To that, the prolific tweeter and data scientist @data_nerd, Carla Gentry, reacted for many others in the decision support industry: “Huh?”

“I think a logical mind is perfect for business,” she tweeted to me when I inquired. “You must see the whole picture to run a successful business. Having an analytical mind helps.”

All true. Even the insurance executive and two others of that level — none of whom agreed to be named — would agree. The difference comes in the contrasting views of the “whole picture.”

Carla seems to assume that the whole picture can show itself in the data. The execs argue that it takes experience and judgement to see the real thing. “The conceit of BI,” emails a retired veteran of multiple technology startups and longtime acquaintance, “is that it has intrinsic value in its own right.”

Data analysts are narrowly focused, and rightly so. They’re looking for the certainty — or at least the illusion of certainty — that numbers provide. Execs — at least the good ones — know they are dealing with a messy and uncertain world. Human beings don’t behave as reliably as numbers. And executive decisions must deal with programs that stretch over many quarters, or even longer. In that time all manner of unplanned events may interfere and require solid executive leadership.

I still think that data analysts will someday find their profession to be a good route to the top. Sales and finance are good paths now, and each tends to breed limited candidates. But until data analysis evolves, it looks like the door to the executive suite may not open as readily as I’d thought it would.

What’s that tool? It’s a macguffin, sir

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When, when will someone write a novel about business intelligence? I can see it now. Amazon will try to sell me From Here to Analysis, Data in the Afternoon, and Lolita, DBA.

But titles are easy. Writing the novel might be tough, since the author would have to run on sheer imagination. There’s no apparent intrigue. The BI crowd plays it safe. Forget sex. The BI crowd works too hard. Forget guns. The BI crowd shoots only bullet points.

In fact, the best strategy might be Alfred Hitchcock’s favorite: the macguffin. It’s a plot element, often ephemeral, that drives the main characters to do what they do regardless of the macguffin’s value. As the plot moves along, the macguffin fades into the background.

In BI, the most common mcguffin is technology — while the real issue is effective use of data in business decisions.

Remember “Psycho”? The woman steals money from her boss and flees. Her boss is sure to follow. We’re looking off in that direction when out of nowhere comes the shower scene. Holy crap! We never saw that one coming!

Hitchcock’s aim was fear, but McGuffins have other uses, too. In business intelligence, the macguffin creates comfort. In the BI plot, the shower scene is instead endless talk about technology, data quality, data this and data that. All the time, lurking in the culture, unexamined and feared, is classic business dysfunction. But leadership can’t fix it, so they go shopping.

What’s a novelist to do? Use it all. Study up on the technology for a week and interview people on the front lines. Then drape BI technology over a standard plot set in an enterprise.

Business people buy BI tools, and so they’ll buy the BI thriller.

Bring in the shrinks for decision analysis

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Now comes the hard part in business intelligence: figuring out how the humans can make better use of all our data and tools for decision making, writes Wayne Eckerson, director of TDWI Research. Let’s bring in the shrinks.

When Wayne points to a trend, it’s news even if others might have already foreseen it. He’s one of the industry’s most thoughtful observers, and one of the most deliberate.

In Tuesday morning’s blog post, he suggests improving BI by enlisting those who study how people make decisions.

To take BI to the next level, we need better insights into human behavior and perception. In other words, it’s time to recruit psychologists onto our BI teams.

He gave an example of one place that could have benefited from visits to the shrink’s couch.

A recent article in the Boston Globe called “Think Different, CIA” provides some instructive lessons for companies using BI tools to make decisions. The article describes a phenomenon that psychologists call “premature cognitive closure” to explain how humans in general, and intelligence analysts in particular, can get trapped by false assumptions, which can lead to massive intelligence failures. It turns out that humans over the course of eons have become great at filtering lots of data quickly to make sense of a situation. Unfortunately, those filters often blind us to additional evidence — or its absence — that would disprove our initial judgment or “theory.” In other words, humans rush to judgment and are blinded by biases. Of course, we all know this, but rarely do organizations implement policies and procedures to safeguard against such behaviors and prevent people from making poor decisions.

See his full post here.

Be sure to see the comments, too. He writes in reply to questions, “Like data governance, we need some principles for approaching and managing decisions. Maybe we should start a decision governance institute!?”

I can’t help notice: an institute.

See “CIA’s insights on the psychology of analysis” on Datadoodle.