The Tail Should Never Wag the Dog, Period.

Not having clarity on the ‘why’ of our analytics is like the tail wagging the dog, the simple fact of the matter is that tails should never wag the dog, period.

Merriam Webster describes the tail wagging the dog as an idiom that usually refers to something important or powerful being controlled by something less so.

Basically, if every piece, yes, every piece, of analytics being done inside an organization is not leading to a decision, then that piece of analytics should not exist! If it does exist, then it will be the ‘something less so’ controlling the ‘something important or powerful.’

Our infatuation to automate and scale analytic solutions, by itself, is not hindering managerial decisioning. Further, the justification for developing and automating enterprise-wide digital analytic solutions to drive effectiveness and speed of decision making isn’t misplaced either. Rather, in the process of automating and scaling solutions we tend to indiscriminately ‘standardize’, and this is the issue. Indiscriminate standardization weakens critical variations that business units need to fit their specific needs. It is like someone once said to me; there is a reason nobody sells ‘warm tea!’ You either sell ‘cold-tea’ or ‘hot-tea’, never warm tea; try it, I have, and it sucks!

Analytic solutions should also be ‘principle’ based vs. being ‘rules’ based. When set in the context of the former they drive strategy and when placed in the context of the latter they purely enforce compliance. This is another example of the 'tail wagging the dog.' Additionally, the latest trend to develop ‘one-size-fits-all’ and ‘single-box’ analytic solutions is like pursuing the proverbial unicorn at best and selling pipe dreams at worse. My strong POV is that these approaches are fundamentally rooted in ‘rules’ vs. ‘principles’ and will result in enforcing ‘compliance’ vs. driving ‘strategy!’

Principles-based analytic solutions by definition will lead to regularity, consistency, continuity, transparency and prudence. The fundamental advantage of a principles-based approach is that one can set broad guidelines that can be practical in a variety of applications. I acknowledge that principles-based solutions can give teams far too much freedom and may provide a misleading picture of what is actually happening. Having said that, a set of rules is not all bad. They can help increase accuracy and reduce ambiguity. Without rules, sometimes, teams would be tempted to report only the numbers that make them look good while omitting reporting any negative outcomes. They can, however, cause unnecessary complications by compelling analysts to pick methods to fit what is acceptable vs. what is needed.

The ‘why’ has to always guide us; the ‘question’ has to always lead us; without this we are perpetually lost. When we don’t have clear questions to answer then we are doomed to produce results that are not used by decision makers. If your analytics do not have a pre-determined set of decisions attached to them; don’t do the work. The churn avoided by an organization not having to respond to ‘busy’ analytics outcomes is priceless!

Invite yourself to be the team that is driving the business and not one that is just busy!