Filtering
Filtering
A critical analysis of one competency initiative
Since selection bias can impact the perceived value of competencies at the time of their initial definition, the usability of derived competency elements, and the effectiveness of competency materials on community decision making, should only be assessed after an appropriate period of evaluation, involving multiple situations. Let's review one competency-based effort, in order to assess the suitability of the materials produced by that effort, after it has been in place for an adequate period of time to facilitate this evaluation. Read more »
The rose colored glasses of group think
When a team jointly develops a depiction of the causal aspects of historical events, and how those led to their current situation, they need to be aware of the effect that their own beliefs can have on their depiction of these events. - Robert Jervis
Narrative and story-telling can be powerful psychological influences within group settings. We are 'wired' to desire to have our individual experiences become a part of our culture's folklore, and respond to the compelling stories of others in such contexts: Read more »
Passion and new knowledge beats old knowledge
Netflix has been running their own X-prize ('Netflix prize'), a crowdsourcing competition for a million dollars to come up with a better algorithm for predicting movie preferences than the algorithm Netflix is currently using. That approach, Cinematch, currently captures 2 million new ratings (between 1 and 5 stars) per day, and is used to predict preferences ('if you liked Braveheart, you will also like...') for the 65,000 movies they rent, about 1 billion times per day. They are looking for a 10% improvement in accuracy, which doesn't sound like much, but would mean 10M of ther customers would get better matches each day - which is quite a lot, if you're trying to differentiate yourself to apture the off-line (and soon, online) rental market!.
Read more »
How does one learn a lesson?
What is a lesson learned? Simply put, it is is knowledge or understanding gained by experience (whether positive or negative), and which adds significant, valid, and relevant new information that would be useful in accomplishing a business objective.
Read more »
Decision-making through critical thinking
This book suggests a path for critical thinking that seeks answers to the following questions:
- What are the observations and the conclusion?
- What is the reasoning behind the conclusions?
- What words, phrases, or data are ambiguous in the observations?
- What are the value conflicts and assumptions inherent in the rationale?
- Are there any fallacies in the reasoning?
- How good is the evidence, and are it's sources trustworthy?
- Are there possible rival causes for the evidence which could lead to an alternative conclusion?
- Are the statistics deceptive?
- Is the confidence level of the assertions adequately articulated?
- What significant information is omitted?
- What reasonable conclusions are therefore possible?
- What are the risks associated with those conclusions?
A companion web site is available at the link below.