Data is a big part of business analysis but it is often given more weight than it deserves.

Let me start by saying I love clients who have lots of good operational data and are willing to let me dive into it.  I get great joy from data analysis.  In fact, much our business these days is centered around our ability to take a client’s data and use it to find areas for operational improvement.

But more and more I’m seeing people focus on the data analytics piece and completely forget about the operational components.  Good data analyzed in ways that misinterpret the operation is worse than having no data at all.  Decisions that seem right on paper but are wrong in reality can cause serious business harm that may not be noticed until it is too late.

Data is often used as a crutch because it is so useful at crafting a story.  If you tell someone that sales are down, they’ll understand but may not get the impact.  If you tell that same person that sales are down 15% this quarter, down 7% for the year and down 22% year over year it paints a much more vivid picture.  But if you provide those numbers without the context that 30% of the business was sold off in February it’s an artificially bleak picture.

What’s the point of this?  Always be questioning numbers.  A picture may be worth a thousand words but a statistical analysis is worth a thousand pictures.  But a staged picture is no different than a staged statistical analysis.  If someone wants to paint a particular picture they can still do it.