Fort Lauderdale -
Quality data are essential assets for effective decision making. This is especially true these days amid so much complexity and uncertainty.
Those leery of the burgeoning use of data analytics in decision making, however, fear the diminution of human judgment in making choices. It’s an understandable but unwarranted fear.
In reality, the opposite is true. As we drown in data of high, variable, and questionable quality, deep human engagement and intervention in their use has never been more needed. The growth and appropriate use of data analytics actually require the complementary growth of wisdom and human guidance.
Too often, data analytics are pitted against human experience and instincts as if the two are somehow separated or even separable. At its best, decision making in business, higher education, and even sports combines the two approaches and accepts the reality that, ultimately, data-informed human judgment prevails. Occasionally, this will even mean overruling what the data tell us in lieu of common sense and experience.
That’s precisely the point that Ed Smith makes in the October 1-2 FT Weekend. The former Chief Selector for England’s national cricket team, and author of the book “Making Decisions: Putting the Human Back in the Machine,” writes that, “This is not to suggest that data holds all the answers and that human judgment is on the road to oblivion. Yes, sport is in the midst of a data revolution, and you’d be insane not to seek better information to inform decisions.”
He continues, “But rather than using data instead of human intelligence, the challenge is using data in tandem with the human dimension.”
In a world that too often presents either-or suppositions, the best premise here is both. Data are tools for decision making; they are means to an end. Decisions should be informed by data but ultimately leavened by human experience and judgment.
Image courtesy of Datapine.