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Better to Be Approximately Right Than Precisely Wrong

12 July, 2018 by James Lawther 4 Comments

Ice-cream van

Spurious accuracy Thirty years ago I sat in a factory office with my head bowed low, looking at the dirty grey lino floor.  My boss, a middle-aged, overweight man wearing a white coat smeared with ice-cream was berating me in a broad west country accent. Apparently I was wasting both my time and his.  I […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: analysis paralysis, assumptions, over-processing, spurious accuracy, statistics, test and learn

Are You Above Average?

5 January, 2014 by James Lawther 12 Comments

We love averages They let us know how we are doing, we run our businesses on averages, we judge ourselves against averages, average headlines even sell newspapers: £2m: average pay award for JP Morgan’s top staff 2013 Weather Summary: Sunnier than average Average woman will kiss 15 men and be heartbroken twice before … (Which link […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: average, key performance indicators, measurement, statistics

World Class Rhetoric

1 December, 2013 by James Lawther 6 Comments

rhetoric

The other day I was sent a report.   It went a little like this… (The names have been changed to protect the guilty)   World Class Performance It has been implied that our performance could be improved.  All available data suggests that this cannot be the case Market Context We have the highest satisfaction […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: assumptions, beliefs, credibility, fessing up, group think, ignorance, integrity, rhetoric, self belief, statistics, W. Edwards Deming

Scientific Proof – Politicians are Stupid

17 November, 2013 by James Lawther 14 Comments

politicians are stupid

The power of belief Have you ever wondered why people hold onto their beliefs despite statistical proof that they are wrong? Is it that we don’t understand what the numbers are telling us? Or is it that we just chose to ignore them? Dan Kahan is the professor of Law and Politics at Yale University. […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: assumptions, beliefs, clarity, data is not information, human nature, statistics, video

Eating at McDonald’s Gives You Acne

13 July, 2013 by James Lawther 8 Comments

Correlation isn't causation

That is a libelous statement, but it is fairly obviously true, I was in McDonald’s with my children only last weekend and it was jam-packed full of spotty teenagers. It is a slam-dunk case of cause and effect.  All those burgers will make you spotty. Really?  What else could be going on? If you are a […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: assumptions, insight, McDonald's, medicine, statistics

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