BUS610: Business Intelligence and Analytics

One of the most important lessons of effective use of ACH and many other analytic methods is to ensure you are not wedded to proving your brilliant hypotheses. The most effective approach to achieving analytic objectivity and, thus, accuracy is to work hard to disprove them. Having a diverse analytic team will help with this, especially if all members are competent enough to have confidence in their contributions and collaborative enough to invite conflict and disagreement about what the findings may seem to indicate. 

The relationship between Alice and George illustrates the aggravating, frustrating team that, if they learn to communicate and check their biases and egos at the door, can ensure accuracy and, more importantly, the seeds for effective advocacy that ensures changes and correct decisions are made. The pressure George placed on Alice daily to prove that her findings along the way and in the end were accurate despite his disputation allowed her to have the certainty and confidence to keep challenging the common wisdom about the safety of x-rays on fetuses to ultimately save the lives of millions of children. Our work may not have that consequential or widespread result, but the results will have the same relative value in the context of our teams and our organizations.

Have you ever tried to disprove your hypothesis or someone else's? Taking this approach as a single member of a team is akin to playing the "Devil's advocate" and can make you wildly unpopular, hence the name. Have you ever resented a team member who played that role? If so, did you ever recognize their value in the project? It has been proven that just playing at being an oppositional advocate is not a truly effective method. They were being contrary for contrariness' sake and risked team cohesiveness. If the person playing the role is doing so for the right reasons, to ensure a lack of bias and full accuracy, the effect on the overall findings can be enormously positive, as in the case of Alice and George. One of the most important lessons of effective use of ACH and many other analytic methods is to ensure you are not wedded to proving your brilliant hypotheses. The most effective approach to achieving analytic objectivity and, thus, accuracy is to work hard to disprove them. Having a diverse analytic team will help with this, especially if all members are competent enough to have confidence in their contributions and collaborative enough to invite conflict and disagreement about what the findings may seem to indicate.