Does anybody have a nail?

Ever wonder how much impact decisions and choices have? Call it Chaos Theory or the Butterfly Effect, as time’s arrow moves forward, each event is a fork in the road. In our enterprises, these forks precipitate a cascade of events that always lead to outcomes. Often, these outcomes are unseen, not measured and attributed to random chance. In fact, these outcomes are deterministic (a big word meaning that they were determined by a prior event or condition.) I have always wondered how much of these events came from letting models and policies make a decision that forethought, deliberation and contextual judgment should have driven.

Many of the decision tools we use today were built under very different business conditions and expectations.

·       To where are these structured algorithms taking your enterprise?

·       How many decisions are made for you that required your insight, judgment, and focus?

·       Is the enterprise on a railway or does it have a steering wheel and an able driver?

I leave you with the ancient and timeless verse:

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

Does the model have a nail?