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Evidence and instinct
Avanti Academy / Complexity, decisions and innovation / Solving Complex Problems and Decision Making / Focus
Focus

Evidence and instinct

Cost benefit, data and problem solving styles.

A short, focused look at the evidence behind decisions: cost benefit and market analysis, data quality, design thinking and differing problem solving styles in a team.

Level
Focus
Learning time
2 hours 30 minutes
Where
Solving Complex Problems and Decision Making
Price
£69

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

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Certificate of Completion, or Certificate of Completion and Assessment with a short assessment

About this course

Overview and Outcomes.

Who It's For

Leaders and analysts who build or weigh options on evidence

Overview

Every decision technique depends on the evidence feeding it and on the people interpreting it. Evidence and instinct explores both. It covers cost benefit analysis from Dupuit to social cost benefit analysis, the ways analysis quietly misleads, and market analysis with the 6W customer model. Deming's standard for accurate, valid, precise and reliable data, and the 2020 A Level grading algorithm, show how confident answers can be wrong. Design thinking is introduced as one technique among several, using IDEO's three tests, and Kirton's Adaption Innovation continuum offers a vocabulary for differences in problem solving style.

Aims

This programme aims to develop leaders who weigh options on honest evidence and genuine need, question the data in front of them, and recognise how different problem solving styles in a team can strengthen judgement when friction is read as difference rather than conflict.

In summary, you will be able to:

  1. Assess the quality of data and analysis behind a decision, using Deming's standard and the common ways cost benefit analysis misleads.
  2. Apply cost benefit, 6W customer analysis and design thinking tests to define and value the options worth considering.
  3. Plan how to design, match and sequence a mixed team of adaptors and innovators using Kirton's Adaption Innovation continuum.

What you'll develop

Through this Focus course, you will build the ability to:

  1. Describe the steps of a cost benefit analysis and how social cost benefit analysis adapts them for public decisions.
  2. Identify common failures in a cost benefit analysis, including convenient omission, false precision and uncounted distribution.
  3. Apply Deming's four tests of accurate, valid, precise and reliable to a figure you use in your own work.
  4. Distinguish the major types of data and identify which calculations, such as averaging, each can honestly support.
  5. Identify when the need itself is uncertain enough to call for design thinking rather than another technique.
  6. Describe Kirton's Adaption Innovation continuum and distinguish what KAI measures from personality and learning style.
What is inside

Built from 2 parts.

2 hours 30 minutes of learning.

  1. 01Weighing the optionsCost benefit analysis and data for decisionsBitesize2 modules
  2. 02Different minds, different routesDesign thinking and Kirton KAI problem solvingBitesize2 modules
Where it fits

Keep going.

Part of the Solving Complex Problems and Decision Making topic, also sold whole as Clear calls in complex times.

How credit works

Go deeper, and pay only the difference

  1. You are hereFocus, 2 hours 30 minutes, £69
  2. The whole topicImmerse, Clear calls in complex times, 13 hours 30 minutes, £249. Already own the Focus? You pay £180.

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. Prices per person. Read the full terms

Other Focus in the Solving Complex Problems and Decision Making topic

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What's inside