I need to have a data-dump on the sales forecasting process and forecasts. On optimistic and pessimistic forecasting: When forecasts are (consistently) too low: well-known issue that even has a name: sandbagging. You forecast lower to temper expectations. When you do get better results than the forecast you look like a hero. When forecasts are... Continue Reading →
How I became an analyst
I just approved a comment on one of my earlier posts, a post about my possible foray into sales. A post that, as I re-read it, brought back plenty of memories. A post that reminded me how my career as it stands now, that of data science and analytics, is quite different from what I had once... Continue Reading →
The Teacher Being Surpassed by the Student
I was in class on Saturday thinking about how nice it would be if an article of mine on edonn.com was used as a piece of "teaching material" - i.e. quoted in class, or perhaps in the lecture notes. It was then that a recollection of "some saying" hit me, something about the aim of... Continue Reading →
Making Measurement Count
There's a saying I've heard many times that goes something like this: what gets measured gets done. And though I completely agree with that saying, I think it misses a crucial point: that before measuring anything, we have to make sure that what's getting done is what you want to get done. After the army... Continue Reading →
KFC and the Representative Survey
I had KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) for breakfast yesterday. Chicken rice porridge and a "breakfast" wrap (that oddly enough didn't seem to contain any chicken). It was decent, and I liked it. So when I was quite excited when I saw that the receipt had a link to an online customer satisfaction survey, for which... Continue Reading →
On Planning and Project Management
"So how long," he asks, "do you think you'll take to complete the project?" "Two weeks," I say. Three weeks later, I'm still two weeks away from completion. What happened? It's not like this hasn't happened before. It's happened many times before. Rolf Dobelli says it beautifully in his excellent book The Art of Thinking... Continue Reading →
Shipping like there’s no tomorrow
The concept of shipping as per Seth Godin is a beautiful thing. In essence it relates to the idea of getting something out (i.e. "creative output"; a "product") without the need to achieve perfection before getting that something out. Ship, get feedback, improve; then ship again, get more feedback, and improve once more. Do this... Continue Reading →
Doing math as an analyst; work before school
I pick up my pen and write down what I see on the screen: 600 out of 14000 rows are selected based on the criteria A = 2 (that's 4%); if I switch over to A = 5, 135 out of 14000 are selected (that's only 1%) -- I now know the probability of several... Continue Reading →
Perspective Matters
120. 130. 140. We were now at 150km/h and cruising past traffic on our left, traffic already exceeding the official speed limit. Let's be clear: I wasn't the driver (let's call him Mr. X) In another world, the world before the one I had just entered, I would have been one of those on the... Continue Reading →
The data is what you want it to be
I was just browsing kottke.org when I came across a short little post about a neat page on Wikipedia aptly called "List of common misconceptions". The post contained an excerpt of that Wikipedia page on life expectancy, a misconception that I myself had (somewhat embarrassingly) up till only recently: It is true that life expectancy... Continue Reading →
Donn, fragments 