November 2016 Seminar: Evidence-based Decision Making
Summary
We all have biases. It’s perfectly natural for the decisions we make in life and work to be influenced by knowledge gained through prior experience and intuition. Most of the time this serves us well. However, we would not expect major business decisions to be made just on ‘gut-feel’.
Using an open and rational evidence base for decision making is now common practice in the Health and Third sectors and increasingly in Government policy making. Quality and timely data is becoming increasingly more important and available to provide that evidence. There’s certainly no lack of data and information around us – but are we sure we have the necessary skills and tools to effectively analyse and interpret it? Do we apply critical thinking to the data we are presented with, or do we accept it at face value?
This event challenged some commonly held assumptions on how we make decisions, and how ‘gut feel’, cognitive bias, ‘rule of thumb’ and heuristic assumptions can distort our interpretation of the data and evidence in front of us, leading us into making decisions we may come to regret.
There were some fun practical exercises. These are attached to linked here, together with Steve’s introduction; they will reveal what sort of decision maker you are!
Speaker
Steve Dale is Founder and Director of Collabor8now Ltd, an organization focused on developing collaborative environments (e.g. Communities of Practice) and the integration of knowledge management tools and processes to support business improvement. He is a ‘KM Institute’ certified knowledge manager and one of three community facilitators for the Warwick University affiliated ‘Knowledge and Innovation Network (KIN)’. He is the author of several published research papers on collaborative behaviours.
Time and Venue
2pm, 3rd November 2016, The British Dental Association, 64 Wimpole Street, London W1G 8YS
Slides
Not available
Tweets
Blog
See our blog report: Evidence-based Decision Making
Study Suggestions
None
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