The modern business world strongly believes in “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” Is it true for all situations? Or, more importantly, should we try to measure and calculate before making every decision?
I think not. To start with, we are often objectively unable to gather enough quality data.
So, the most important question is: when should we seek data-driven decisions, and when is it time for old-fashioned common sense?
It’s a billion-dollar question, for sure. But I think at least one of the factors here is the degree of typicality. If you are dealing with the type of problem that occurs frequently, you probably should adopt a more data-driven approach. Even if you don’t have enough data initially, you will collect the statistics after a series of decisions and their results.
On the other hand, if you’re facing a rare or unique problem, you probably could not solve it with data alone.
