Blog

Decision Making Strategies

For this week’s discussion you required to apply the BADIR process (Business question, Analysis plan, Data collection, Insights, and Recommendation) to a personal or professional problem you are currently facing or something you want to improve.

You must go through each of the five steps of the BADIR process while attempting to solve your problem. You will share your experience going through this process in your response. You may review the BADIR process in Chapter 4 of Behind Every Good Decision.

You do not need to apply all the practices described in the book as they may not all be applicable to your individual circumstance, but your response must at least answer some questions related to each of the five steps.

Questions your response should answer are provided below. You are free implement more of the steps described in the book as you see fit. As you will see, the majority of your work will be determining the right question and how to answer it. This is one of the most important steps of the process. The other most important step is being able to convince the decision makers to make the decision you want them to make (recommendation).

1. For the Business question step you should answer questions to identify intent and questions to understand business considerations (even if it is not a business problem). From answering these questions, you should be able to narrow the problem or goal down to a one or two questions as in the example of pp. 57-58.

Intent

• What is it and why am I interested?
• Where, when, and why (potentially) is it taking place, and who is affected?

Business considerations

• What decisions need to be taken and by when?
• Who is the decision maker, who will take action, and what actions would be taken?

2. For the Analysis plan step you should answer questions related to your analysis goals, methodology, data specification, and analysis plan steps. You do not have to use any of the seven methodologies in the book. For example, you may use a point system or pros and cons list as described in section 3 of the GCF tutorial. You may even use your own method.

Analysis goals: What needs to be determined to make the decision?

Methodology: What methods will I use to make those determinations?

Data specification: What variables do I need to measure and how will they be measured?

Analysis plan: How will the data be collected/produced, by whom will it be collected, and by when?

3. For the Data Collection step, simply collect the data you require.

4. For the Insights step, perform the analysis described by your methodology to identify patterns between the variables and describe how strongly those variables are related to the problem or goal.

5. For the Recommendation step, propose what you believe should be done to solve the problem based on your insight. Were you able to successfully solve the problem in time for this discussion? How was the outcome?

You do not need to overthink this assignment or tackle an especially challenging problem. You can apply this analysis to even the simplest of problems. The best approach is simply to identify a problem you need to solve and begin working through the process step-by-step. This problem could be related to your work or personal life. Even if you think the problem is too simple and your answers will be silly, that is fine. The important thing is for you to consciously practice this process and communicate your experiences.

57

B.A.D.I.R.: BUSINESS ANALYTICS IN FIVE SIMPLE STEPS

Understand what actions your stakeholders are ready to take as a result of this analysis.

If you find that the stakeholders are unable to take action based on the findings, then this analysis doesn’t need to be done. If Step 1 is completed properly, eight out of ten requests for data and insights will be filtered out, because the information may prove “nice to know” rather than answer a critical question that would drive the business forward.

Merging the technical and business tracks by combining intent with business considerations would help refine the real business ques-tion so you can better target your analysis. Doing this up front will save time, increase relevancy, and efficiently use resources, thereby reduc-ing cost and effort.

Simply put, the more and better questions you ask, the better your results will be. Some words of caution are warranted when working through Step 1 to get to the business question (see Exhibit 4-5).

Pets & Pets is an online pet resource company in the United King-dom. It has a reputation for not only providing a comprehensive selection of pet products at competitive prices, but also serving as a trusted source of information about pets and pet products. Over the EXHIBIT 4-5. Steps to Avoid in Finding the Business Question

✘ DO NOT . . . . . . try to propose a solution to the problem at this stage. It would preempt discovery of valuable information about your business that you may unearth with a thorough investigation. . . .

ask leading questions. They will only result in biased answers or no answers at all. Such faulty analysis could, in turn, skew the insights and recommendations you offer.

 58

DIVING DEEP

American Management Association • www.amanet.orgyears, it has captured extensive information about its online visi-tors. Britney, Chief Product Officer (CPO), asked Alex, Director of Analytics, for online sales conversion data by country, product, and feature for the last 10 years.

Because Alex realizes this will result in a sea of data across the life of Pets & Pets, he first asks relevant questions to understand why Britney wants this information. Alex learns that while he was on vacation, a new feature was tested in the online sales flow for dog leashes to increase conversion. However, the feature actually re-sulted in a drop in sales conversion. Although only 1 percent of UK traffic was affected, the losses were close to $600,000 per month.

Alex also learned the new feature had many bugs and that there had been some friction over the design. Britney was under great pressure from the CEO. She would need to decide between rolling back the test and giving up the new feature or making adjustments to immediately improve conversion. The former wouldn’t be ideal, as Britney’s team had worked on this high-visibility project for over two months. She was tending toward the latter choice, but wanted to know what adjustments would be necessary to correct the con-version dip.

Britney was meeting the CEO in two days to debrief. To com-plete this investigation, Alex narrowed the real business question to: “What are the reasons for conversion drop after the dog leash online checkout feature was launched in the UK?” and “What actions can Product Development, Product Management, and Quality Assur-ance team take to address the bleeding?”

Notice how different the clarified business question is from Brit-ney’s original question (see Exhibit 4-6). In arriving at the business question, Alex also discovered the driver behind this request, the var-ious business considerations, the stakeholders, and the timeline. If he had not arrived at this question, he would have found himself in the same shoes as Jeff at Smart Shoes, wasting time and resources to re-turn a data ocean back to Britney, who would wonder why Alex was not able to read her mind.

Business success relies on the implementation of a variety of strategies and efforts. These include the BADIR process (Business question, Analysis plan, Data collection, Insights, and Recommendation), which provides critical insights and organizational approaches to understand the business requirements (Sharma, 2019). In this essay, I will apply this process to improve customer satisfaction, a challenge currently faced in my business.

Business Questions

This step is a crucial aspect of consideration as it enables to identify the gaps in the business and questions to understand the business considerations.  Customer satisfaction is a crucial aspect of any business success. However, in embracing the strategies to improve this aspect, I need to understand the key goals or the driving force that prompts such measures (Nakatani & Wynekoop, 2020).  Maintaining a large market share in the competitive business world and increasing revenues is a worthwhile goal. However, this is only achievable if the customers are happy and the business has many returning clients. In this regard, I need to understand what customer satisfaction means and why I should pursue it. As such, the business questions, in this case, would be:

• What is it, and why am I interested?
• What decisions need to be taken and by when?

Analysis Plan

In addressing the business challenge, various questions need to be answered to guide the solution achievement plan.  Such include the questions regarding what factors need to be considered in making the decisions. In this case, it is vital to analyze the feedback given by customers regarding the products and services.  Customers have a variety of desires which the products should fulfil, and hence, assessing the level of this satisfaction is crucial (Johoran, 2019). Besides, I will assess the number of returning clients versus then new clients. This will help to realize the gap in satisfaction level and hence embrace the relevant measures. I will collect the data by having the clients make comments upon purchasing a product regarding the kind of service they received and email them to receive feedback concerning the product a few days after the purchase. Analyzing the feedback will help identify the level of satisfaction they experienced.

Data Collection

In this step, I will assess the number of inquiring clients per day and compare it with the number of those who make orders after inquiries.  The comments made by the clients in a given period of time will also be assembled in a folder. Besides, the suggestion box will also be checked to collect more information. Questionnaires will also be filled by clients whereby they answer short questions regarding their experience with products and services.

Insights

With the information from the clients, I will identify and compare both the negative and positive feedback to ascertain the level of satisfaction of my customers. The questionnaires will also be analyzed. Generally, the analysis will aid to compare the number of returning and new clients (Boa, Wattanatorn & Tagong, 2018). In this case, the low number of returning clients will indicate a low satisfaction level, hence indicating the need to implement strategic measures to curb the problem.

Recommendations

If the returning clients indicate a decreased number, I propose listening to customers to understand their specified needs and working towards achieving the goal. Being proactive is also a crucial factor that entails reaching out to customers positively to inquire about their experience once they purchase a product (Vats, 2019). This will aid to build strong customer loyalty and pave a path to identify potential crisis.