# Data-Driven Organizations and Decision-Making By:: [[Brian Heath]] 2024-08-30 What does a data-driven organization do when there is no data or when collecting data is too costly for the decision? First, let's consider what data is. We typically think of data as something in a spreadsheet or written on paper. While this is certainly data, it does define the entirety of what data is. At its core, data are things that are known or assumed to be used for analysis. So, how much data is stored within one's brain? How much does one know and assume? Within a data-driven organization, there is no such thing as no data. The data is either known, unknown, or assumed. Organizations must decide how to proceed within these data limits of the known, unknown, or assumed. However, notice that the emphasis within the data-driven organization is not on the data but on the analysis and decisions. Data serves as a foundation from which analysis is performed, and one can do analysis with known, unknown, and assumed data. Decisions are often made with a mixture of all three data states. We fail to call them out in this way as decision-making under uncertainty with mixed knowns, unknowns, and assumptions comes naturally to us. Every day, I choose to sit in my office chair. I know it exists, and it has worked in the past. I don't know if someone tampered with it while I wasn't looking, and I assume it will remain upright when I sit in it. There are many knowns, unknowns, and assumptions in this everyday decision. The issue with most organizations that wish to take up the mantra of being a data-driven organization is managerial and organizational anxiety. When managers and organizations poorly manage their anxiety about the unknown future, they often turn to things like data-driven organizational constructs. Many promise this type of culture will relieve their anxiety by increasing the number of knowns and minimizing assumptions. Certainly, one will know more, but it is a drop in an infinite bucket. There will always be more unknowns and assumptions than knowns. Many organizations become so fixated on the data to relieve their anxiety that they forget to make decisions and do anything at all. It is this doing nothing that causes even more anxiety, and the spiral continues. It doesn't have to be this way. An organization that wishes to become data-driven should start answering the questions at the start of this post: What should the organization do when there is no data or when collecting data is too costly for a particular decision? There are many paths forward here, but first consider the decisions that must be made, their value, and what drives all of one's anxiety. #### Related Items [[Data]] [[Decision-making]] [[Data-Driven Decisions]] [[Organization]] [[Management]] [[Anxiety]] [[Analytics]]