Expectation and Data Quality by Jim Harris.
From the post:
One of my favorite recently read books is You Are Not So Smart by David McRaney. Earlier this week, the book’s chapter about expectation was excerpted as an online article on Why We Can’t Tell Good Wine From Bad, which also provided additional examples about how we can be fooled by altering our expectations.
“In one Dutch study,” McRaney explained, “participants were put in a room with posters proclaiming the awesomeness of high-definition, and were told they would be watching a new high-definition program. Afterward, the subjects said they found the sharper, more colorful television to be a superior experience to standard programming.”
No surprise there, right? After all, a high-definition television is expected to produce a high-quality image.
“What they didn’t know,” McRaney continued, “was they were actually watching a standard-definition image. The expectation of seeing a better quality image led them to believe they had. Recent research shows about 18 percent of people who own high-definition televisions are still watching standard-definition programming on the set, but think they are getting a better picture.”
I couldn’t help but wonder if establishing an expectation of delivering high-quality data could lead business users to believe that, for example, the data quality of the data warehouse met or exceeded their expectations. Could business users actually be fooled by altering their expectations about data quality? Wouldn’t their experience of using the data eventually reveal the truth?
See Jim’s post for the answer on the quality of data warehouses.
Rather than arguing the “facts” of one methodology over another, what if an opponent were using a different technique and kept winning?
Would that influence an enterprise, agency or government view of a technology?
Genuine question because a large percentage of enterprises don’t believe in routine computer security if the statistics are to be credited.
That despite being victimized by script kiddies on a regular basis.
Of course, if the opponent were a paying customer, would it really matter?