From SmartOrg’s Blog:
Big Mistakes in Evaluation
by David Matheson, SmartOrg President & CEO

Robin Karol, CEO of the PDMA once told me “By far the biggest mistake in decision making is treating an evaluation as an analysis rather than a conversation.” This view is a bit astonishing, as many analysts spend a lot of time learning about the mathematical modeling in evaluation. It is a trap I have fallen into.

My conversation with Robin brought a flashback to early in my career. I saw myself in a boardroom finishing the presentation of what I thought was a brilliant analysis to the executives. The bottom line: closing the power plant early would save the company tons of money. There were a few questions, easily answered from my analysis. Then one executive piped up, “I don’t know, my gut says otherwise.” Read more from this SmartOrg Blog entry.