37 Posts Found

Averages are one-dimensional vanity metrics. Without context, they leave out the why.

Content: Quotation | Author: Lloyd Tabb | Source: “First Round Review” | Subjects: Management, Measurement, Statistics

You probably know by now that whenever possible you should be making data-driven decisions at work. But do you know how to parse through all of the data available to you? The good news is that you likely don’t have to do the number crunching yourself (hallelujah!) but you do need to correctly understand and interpret the analysis created by your colleagues. One of the … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Amy Gallo | Source: “Harvard Business Review” | Subject: Statistics

The same body of psychological research that underpins behavioral economics also suggests that we are very poor natural statisticians. We are naturally prone to find spurious information in data where none exists, latch on to causal narratives that are unsupported by sketchy statistical evidence, ignore population base rates when estimating probabilities for individual cases, be overconfident in our judgments, and generally be “fooled by randomness.” … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: David Steier, Harvey Lewis, James Guszcza, John Lucker, Vivekanand Gopalkrishnan | Source: “Deloitte Review” | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Personality / Behavior, Statistics, Thought

If you’re a manager working with the analysts in your organization to make more data-driven business decisions, asking good questions should be one of your top priorities. Many managers fear that asking questions will make them appear unintelligent about quantitative matters. However, if you ask the right kinds of questions, you can both appear knowledgeable and advance the likelihood of a good decision outcome.

Content: Article | Author: Thomas H. Davenport | Source: “Harvard Business Review” | Subjects: Management, Statistics

We’re awash in data. Here’s how to make yours matter.

Content: Article | Authors: Chip Heath, Dan Heath | Source: “Fast Company” | Subjects: Personal Development, Statistics

Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive; what they conceal is vital.

Content: Quotation | Author: Aaron Levenstein | Subject: Statistics

Torture numbers, and they will confess to anything.

Content: Quotation | Author: Gregg Easterbrook | Subject: Statistics

Studying even the right tail of a distribution doesn’t tell you how to break free of the distribution. In short, if you want to use inferential methods to get outside the box, you have to look at someone who is outside the box!

To see the importance of this step in the analysis, ask yourself this question: If two firms in the same industry had differences … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Andrew D. Henderson, Michael E. Raynor, Mumtaz Ahmed | Source: “Ivey Business Journal” | Subjects: Best Practices, Statistics

When this regular Ivey Business Journal contributor recommends a certain book, executives can be assured that they will derive value from the book. Even if it is a black swan.

Content: Article | Author: John McCallum | Source: “Ivey Business Journal” | Subjects: Management, Risk Management, Statistics

Predictive analytics is emerging as a practical discipline, one that can help business leaders make better decisions. In a world whose complexity in many respects has moved beyond our cognitive abilities, numbers are nothing to fear. In fact, they may be your greatest ally.

Content: Article | Authors: James Guszcza, John Lucker | Source: “Deloitte Review” | Subject: Statistics

Why are business and economic forecasts so often wrong, and why can’t they be improved? In a new feature from s+b — Author’s Choice — leading writers select and introduce passages from notable books. In this piece, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, introduces an engaging lesson in business forecasting from Dance with Chance: Making Luck Work … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Spyros Makridakis | Source: “strategy+business” | Subject: Statistics

The field of statistics is based on something called the law of large numbers: as you increase your sample size, no single observation is going to hurt you. Sometimes that works. But the rules are based on classes of distribution that don’t always hold in our world.

All statistics come from games. But our world doesn’t resemble games. We don’t have dice that can deliver. Instead … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb | Source: “McKinsey Quarterly” | Subjects: Finance, Risk Management, Statistics

Simulations study the interaction of random variables in a business process over time – how many customers might walk in the door at any moment, the return on an upcoming advertising campaign, the chance of your information system going down – and use the results to improve business policies. This article provides an overview of simulation and shows how it’s particularly useful for learning about … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Ricki G. Ingalls | Source: “Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS)” | Subjects: Operations, Statistics

We must keep in mind the story of the statistician who drowned while trying to wade across a river with an average depth of four feet. That is to say, in a culture that reveres statistics, we can never be sure what sort of nonsense will lodge in people’s heads.

Content: Quotation | Source: “Technopoly” | Subject: Statistics

DSS has gathered some of the more useful market research tools (Sample Size Calculator, Sample Error Calculators, Statistical Power Calculator) here, along with some general research white papers and Internet resources.

Content: Online Resource | Source: “DSS Research” | Subjects: Market Research, Statistics

Do statistics tell the entire story? Managers must make effective use of the numbers they generate. Here are five tips to help ensure that you can rely on the numbers.

Content: Article | Sources: “Harvard Business School (HBS)”, “Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge” | Subject: Statistics

Averages hide more than they disclose.

Content: Quotation | Source: “Boston Consulting Group (BCG)” | Subject: Statistics

The goal of this project “is to provide easy entry to Internet resources that can be used in support of statistics education and applications,” especially in the social sciences. The site features interactive statistics tutorials, statistics applets, and links to glossaries, journals, and other related statistics sites.

Content: Online Resource | Source: “The Claremont Colleges” | Subject: Statistics

This content is restricted to site members. Please log in or register

Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive; what they conceal is vital.

Content: Quotation | Source: “Unknown” | Subject: Statistics