From data to decisions
Using data and evidence for better decisions.
A day on data and decisions: why data is never raw, collection and quality, reading data honestly, valuing options, unintended consequences, sensemaking, probability and risk, dashboards, public data and algorithmic fairness.
- Level
- Immerse
- Learning time
- 11 hours
- Where
- Complexity, decisions and innovation
- Price
- £249
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Read the full terms
Certificate of Completion, or Certificate of Completion and Assessment with a short assessment
Overview and Outcomes.
Who It's For
Managers and leaders who rely on data and evidence to make decisions
Overview
In public service, numbers shape where money goes and who gets help. This day begins with why data is never raw, how method should follow the question and what makes data fit to use, drawing on Lisa Gitelman, Joseph McGrath and Deming. Reading data honestly follows, with Shewhart, Gigerenzer and Kahneman's work on noise, then cost benefit analysis, unintended consequences and Goodhart's law, and sensemaking with Weick, Snowden and Rosenhead. The second half covers probability and risk with Kahneman and Tversky and the Challenger disaster, dashboards and Results-Based Accountability, public data in Wales and the UK, algorithmic fairness, and the Horizon and Mid Staffordshire cases.
Aims
What it sets out to do is help leaders treat reading numbers well as a matter of fairness as much as skill: questioning figures before acting, weighing options and risks with clearer judgement, building measures and dashboards that help people learn, and asking whether data and automated systems treat people fairly.
In summary, you will be able to:
- Use the five questions for any number, and Deming's four tests, to judge how much weight a figure can bear.
- Design a small basket of measures for learning, and run safe-to-fail probes when the answer cannot be known in advance.
- Assess a dashboard for purpose, signal, gaps and gaming, and apply the Data and AI Ethics Framework to automated decisions.
What you'll develop
By the end of this Immerse, you will be able to:
- Explain how human choices at each of the six steps of the data journey, from first question to final decision, shape the figures you are given.
- Apply Deming's four tests of accurate, valid, precise and reliable to a figure you use, and identify where it is weakest.
- Describe the steps of a cost benefit analysis and how social cost benefit analysis adapts them for public decisions.
- Explain why measures change behaviour, using Merton's causes of unintended consequences and Goodhart's and Campbell's laws.
- Explain how Weick's sensemaking reverses the conventional analyse, decide, act sequence, and identify when careful analysis still fits better.
- Identify the availability heuristic, the law of small numbers and authority anchoring in live risk discussions.
- Identify the main producers of public data in Wales and the UK, and use labels such as accredited official statistics to judge how far to trust a figure.
- Explain how the same data was read differently in the Challenger, Horizon, Mid Staffordshire and Covid-19 cases, and why some readings prevailed.
Built from 8 parts.
11 hours of learning.
- 01Method follows the questionData collection methods, types and qualityBitesize · Understanding Data and Data Analysis3 modules
- 02Seeing differentlyReading data honestly and differing perceptionsBitesize · Understanding Data and Data Analysis2 modules
- 03Weighing the optionsCost benefit analysis and data for decisionsBitesize · Solving Complex Problems and Decision Making2 modules
- 04Consequences and uncertaintyUnintended consequences and sensemaking with dataBitesize · Understanding Data and Data Analysis2 modules
- 05Probe, sense, respondSensemaking in complex systems with CynefinBitesize · VUCA, Uncertainty and Complexity2 modules
- 06Odds, upside and downsideProbability and the risk-opportunity matrixBitesize · Strategic Risk2 modules
- 07Targets and public dataMeasures, dashboards and public data in Wales and the UKBitesize · Understanding Data and Data Analysis2 modules
- 08Fair dataData ethics and algorithmic fairness, with case studiesBitesize · Understanding Data and Data Analysis2 modules