I've been thinking a lot recently about all of the challenges I've seen day to day in making data useful. There are many more than I can capture here, but I thought I'd highlight some of the key ones I've most enjoyed wrestling with.
I'll introduce them here, and then I'll do a post on each challenge in the coming weeks.
1. What data should we actually make use of? I'll argue that focus is vital, and less is more.
2. How to compare? When you have multiple sources of data, how do you bring them together to add value, without confusing?
3. How do you combine data with people's skills and judgement? This is rarely talked about, as we often pretend that data drives decisions. In reality, it's almost always head + heart, so let's embrace that and work out how to optimize it!
4. How do we check skills & judgement with data, and yet support skills & judgement, so we don't blindly follow the data? Sometimes an analyst's job is to play down the data to help people to be confident enough to inject their skill & judgment.
5. Clear objectives. Data has so many uses. My live is decision-making, but there are so many other uses (good, bad and indifferent). How do we get clear about what we're actually trying to use data for?
It's gonna be fun to think about these in the coming weeks. I hope it's interesting to you! As always, I'd love thoughts, ideas and stories in the comments.
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