Big Decisions Blog
The latest news and insights from the team at Hubbard Decision ResearchThe Diamond Princess Quarantine: Using a Beta Distribution to Predict Initial 2019 Coronavirus Infections
The Diamond Princess cruise ship is currently under quarantine while 271 passengers are being tested (as of 2/5/2020) for the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019 n-CoV). Concern about infection arose when a prior passenger from Hong Kong who was on board the ship from 1/20...
7 Simple Principles for Measuring Anything
If you want to make better decisions, using data to inform your decision-making is the way to go. Organizations largely understand this reality in principle, if not always in practice. But it's not enough to just gather data; you have to know how to use it, and...
Estimating the True Number of Infections of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus: Reasons for Potentially Massive Underreporting
There is good reason to believe that the number of the 2019 novel coronavirus- or 2019-nCoV - infections worldwide may be much greater than what has been reported so far. As of Tuesday, February 3, 2020, at 8:00am CST (UTC-6) the Johns Hopkins coronavirus tracking...
Trojan Horse: How a Phenomenon Called Measurement Inversion Can Massively Cost Your Company
Overview: A Trojan horse is anything that introduces risk to an organization through something that appears to be positive Measuring the wrong variables is a Trojan horse that infiltrates virtually every organization This phenomenon has a real cost that can be...
These Two Problems Are Why Innovation Initiatives Fail
Overview: The most common reason organizations fail at innovating might not be what you think Defining what innovation means to an organization is critical for success Even the best-defined innovation initiatives fail if they aren't properly measured Innovation has...
What the Manhattan Project and James Bond Have in Common – and Why Every Analyst Needs to Know It
Overview: A powerful quantitative analysis method was created as a result of the Manhattan Project and named for an exotic casino popularized by the James Bond series The tool is the most practical and efficient way of simulating thousands of scenarios and calculating...
Are We Already In a Recession?
Overview: Fears of a recession are rising as experts attempt to predict when a recession will officially occur Forecasting a recession, for most practical purposes, is irrelevant to decision-makers Decision-makers need to ask the right questions that will help them...
Going Beyond the Usual Suspects in Commercial Real Estate Modeling: Finding Better Variables and Methods
Overview: Quantitative commercial real estate modeling is becoming more widespread, but is still limited in several crucial ways You may be measuring variables unlikely to improve the decision while ignoring more critical variables Some assessment methods can create...
