IT professionals love hard facts. It comes with the turf. So it's no surprise that many view the process of intuition skeptically. Indeed, increased use of analytics in enterprise information processing reflects an underlying mistrust of intuition in making tough business decisions.
But is there no room for intuition in IT at all?
The answer may depend on how one defines intuition. For some researchers, intuition has been described as the ability to make decisions quickly, on the fly, without much reflection. The success of intuition thus depends on a person's ability to synthesize information effectively. So success in intuitive decision-making depends on how much experience people have and how smart they are (and therefore how many facts they can recall).
At the same time, it isn't tough to find instances when intuition fails. The stock market is full of "geniuses" who eventually made the wrong choices. The trick seems to be to apply intuition where it can be most useful.
Finding where intuition best applies in business can be tricky. For purveyors of IT software and services, intuition is useful only if it can be backed up with analytics. Indeed, in describing the use of analytics in a medical project, a writeup from IBM Research basically devalues reliance on intution at all, even though medicine is a field where intuition has always played a strong role. The argument goes that if even the basic terminology of medicine can't be nailed down intuitively, what hope is there for more specific information to be processed adequately through human brainpower alone?
A study has shown that basic vocabulary to express uncertainty, such as "likely", "highly probable", etc., has a wide range of interpretation for individual physicians. The meaning of "likely", for instance, can range from not probable (around 20% of occurrences) to highly probable (around 95% of occurrences), depending on how an individual physician defines it.
There is thought on the other side of the issue, as well, which states that expert input can help in the creation of good analytics. In a blog, George Danner, president of Business Laboratory LLC, a Houston scientific simulation and analysis consulting firm, states:
Models don't replace human intuition, knowledge, and experience -- they codify them. Done properly, models and human judgment are seamlessly interwoven into a single, organized body of knowledge. An institutional artifact that is worthy of preservation and continuous use.
Some general tips have emerged in the past few years about how best to use intuition along with analytics. Here are a few worth mentioning:
Don't rely on intuition alone. In a paper published in May 2010, Daniel J. Simons of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Christopher F. Chabris of Union College in New York warn against relying solely on intuition:
The trouble with intuition is that while intuitive modes of thought are easier to use than analytical modes, they are poorly adapted to many circumstances and decisions we face in the modern world. If we follow our gut instincts, we will talk on the telephone while we drive, have too much trust in eyewitnesses, and believe we know what causes what -- in health care, finance, politics, and every other domain -- without even realizing that we haven't considered the right evidence, let alone come to the right conclusions.
Be willing to examine intuition for flaws.Finding a balance between intuition and analytics requires a willingness to examine how intuition fails. Only with this kind of honest appraisal can intuition be used effectively in corporate decision-making.
Apply intuition to finding the right questions, not answering them. In a press statement in a report on analytics, IBM, which has a vested interest in the subject, nevertheless makes a compelling argument:
Flip the equation in the approach to data and insights: Many organizations start new initiatives by gathering all of the available data on a topic and then extracting whatever insights they can get. Instead, the first step should be to identify what specific insights are needed, and then identify those pieces of data needed for answers.
As the new year begins, intuition will continue to play a role in IT and other areas of the enterprise. But it will increasingly play a role subordinate to analytics.
Intuition is the other side of the brain. The key is knowing how to use intuition. To access your intuition you have to get out of your mind - the logical side of your mind that is. Stepping back, not thinking, getting quiet, clearing your mind then open to your intuition.
I agree with using both - logic and intuition. The key is knowing how to be intuitive aside from gut feelings.
Exactly, Mary. It is that level of competition that I believe will make analytics a necessity. The leading competitors will have to have a better total understanding of the markets.
Exactly, Dream Chaser. It becomes very tempting to continue to get more from what you have; which can also convince you to not do more.
That's where a lot of managers and companies are trying to reap profits from ideas that are outdated, no longer relevant, or partial copies of genuine improvements. The leading companies, like IBM, have invested instead in building the capability to keep learning. The true answer is solving the customer's problems; you do that and you will do well.
our lack of humility may take us confidently down the wrong path. Or our inability to tame our lust and greed for more more more more. I remember the Windows 95 launch. Hardware company's were going nuts during this time. I was at an event at a Big Box retailer and there was mountains of new product everywhere you could hardly move through the aisles. My intuition hit me right then and there and said, theres no way this is going to last no way. It didn't and at minimum I was at least prepared to change course when it ended.
Agreed, DHagar. I'm always suspicious of "either/or" thinking, because typically I've found it false at the core. It's rare that there isn't a broader set of choices in enterprise problem solving.
Great points. Actually, knowing the true questions is more critical today. There are many executives solving today's problems based on their past experience and intuition.
Analytics, in reality, can amplify our intuition and solidify our thinking. If it is an either/or, it probably is lacking in the perception of the problem to begin with, meaning our lack of humility may take us confidently down the wrong path.
I think effective management skills for the next ten years will be learning how to use analytics effectively. True fact-based profiles, along with our management experience, provides a sound basis for decision making.
I know I've been up five hours already and my brain still isn't fully functioning. LOL . . seriously though I think the best option would be something like this.
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