Presented at InnoTech Dallas 2016. All rights reserved.

1. Asking Better Questions
with Data
ROBERT ROUSE
ANALYTICS CONSULTANT AND TABLEAU ZEN MASTER
INTERWORKS, INC.

2. Imagine this Scenario

3. Sales Dashboard

4. Sales Dashboard – Take 2

5. What’s Going on Here
 Slight changes in the question leads to very different answers
 First impressions shape further inquiry
 Cognitive influences
 Organizational influences

6. The Power of Visual Comprehension
Pre-Attentive Attributes
Source: Stephen Few, Tapping the Power of Visual Perception
https://www.perceptualedge.com/articles/ie/visual_perception.pdf

7. Modes of Thinking
 System 1 operates automatically and
quickly, with little or no effort and no
sense of voluntary control
 System 2 allocates attention to the
effortful mental activities that demand it,
including complex computations.

8. Don’t Fool Yourself
The Pre-Attentive or “System 1” mode of thinking invites cognitive biases
 What you see is all there is (WYSATI)
 Cognitive ease
 Norms based on experience
 Recency bias (especially with year-over-year comparisons)
 Plenty more where that came from: politics, personalities, emotions…

9. Overcoming Cognitive Biases
 Ask yourself: “What am I missing here?”
 Make it easy to ask new questions
 Validate the baseline comparison
 Think beyond your own experience

10. “PRODUCERS”
-IT
-BI
-Developers
“CONSUMERS”
-Analysts
-Managers
-Users
-Pipeline
-Processes
-Meetings
…etc
Dealing with Structural Limitations

11. My best advice to leave you with:
Cultivate Curiosity