It’s the Journey, and the Destination: The Never-Ending Data Story

In the not-so-ideal scenario where your data doesn’t support your hunch, do you stop there? You might, but there is a lot of learning that comes from results you do not expect. You may challenge yourself and ask: are my assumptions about this problem flawed? What else have I learned along the way? What factors might I have overlooked?

We recognize that taking time to examine your results in the context of your research question, and broader research problem, is not always possible for leaders who need to make urgent decisions. However, the key is to lean into the ambiguity and understand that regardless of the result of an analysis, leveraging data to make decisions is an ongoing process. At each critical point—including the moment from examining assumptions, evaluating data, and interpreting results—there are opportunities to pause and get ‘feedback’ about how we understand the problem and the factors we perceive to be relevant (e.g. the data source, the data itself).