How frequently does data overload affect you?

courtesy searchengineland.com

Christopher Frank and Paul Magnone, authors of Drinking from the Fire Hose, want you to take a short quiz. Answer each question with either “frequently” or “infrequently.” Give yourself one point for each time you answer “frequently.” If you score a 5 or higher, you probably want to come back tomorrow to look at some excerpts of their solution to drowning in data.

• How often do you sit through a meeting that’s more about reporting the numbers than about learning from them?
• How often do you leave a meeting with more questions than answers?
• How often do your colleagues spend more time presenting the data than they do discussing the implications?
• How often do you feel that preexisting beliefs affect the way data is interpreted?
• Once the results are reported, how often does the conversation end up going down the dame old path instead of developing any new insights?
• How often do you see data cited to confirm a point of view instead of to spark fresh insight?
• How often do you learn nothing actionable from a data set?
• How often do you feel you have to make a decisions before you’ve been able to review all the data at hand?
• How often do you feel that you could make better decision for the organization if you just had a little more time?

Tomorrow: How to find truly essential nuggets of information and use them with confidence.