How to Overcome Your Analytics Anxiety for Better Decision Making
Analytics can help organizations make decisions faster, more conveniently, and more accurately … at least in theory. In practice, however, faster and easier decision-making is often just an unrealized goal, and floods of data overwhelm the people struggling to make sense of it.
So what’s the source of this disconnection? Odds are it’s a people problem — one that’s persisted in spite of our evolving digital sophistication.
In 2012, James Guszcza and John Lucker wrote about it a Deloitte Review article on big data and business analytics.
They noted how many organizations, “often out of a combination of inertia, competing priorities and culture of skepticism about the effectiveness of business analytics” spend years discussing how they can use data without creating a plan to do so.
“Others eagerly embrace the notion of analytics but treat it as an ‘all-or-nothing’ proposition requiring data or algorithmic perfection before actions can be taken.” And some companies just swing from one extreme to the other.
More recently, Ezmeralda Khalil Sager, VP at Booz Allen Hamilton, an IT consultancy, said much the same. “Analytics success is only possible in a culture that is ready to embrace it.”
The reality: The data you mine is only as good as the way it’s used. Data is just a means to an end, not an end in itself.
While data analytics can be a catalyst for fresh thinking and change, remind yourself that it is just a tool. And while it can help you ask questions, it doesn’t necessarily help you ask the right ones. That’s where people — and a thoughtful strategy — take center stage.
“Don’t assume that acquiring new technology is essential to reach transformational levels of maturity in data and analytics,” said Nick Heudecker, Gartner research vice president.
“First, focus on improving how people and processes are coordinated inside the organization, and then look at how you enhance your practices with external partners.
