Closing time is generally the most annoying time for those living next to bars and clubs. Tipsy revellers pour out en masse, shouting and shrieking, into residential areas. The City of Portsmouth in the south of England has an interesting solution. After numerous complaints about noise they suggested that one club give a free lollipop to each departing guest. Turns out that people can't shout and … [Read more...]
Spreadsheet abuse in the twenty-first century
Economist and author Thomas Piketty is the latest person to have been burned by spreadsheet modeling. A Financial Times investigation into the data behind his wildly successful book "Capital in the Twenty-First Century" concluded that In his spreadsheets, however, there are transcription errors from the original sources and incorrect formulas. As long as analysts continue to use … [Read more...]
Review of “You Are What You Decide”
Regular readers of this blog will know that application always excites me more than theory. I'm always interested in applications of tools or ideas. So, when I heard Sean Brady of Prism Decision Systems was working on a book I couldn't wait to read it. Sean is a practitioner. It's in his blood. I've lost count of the times I've contacted him only to hear that he was in a room with a bunch of … [Read more...]
Confrontations in Crimea
Whenever there's a geopolitcal crisis the e-mails start pouring in---"What does confrontation analysis recommend?" Unfortunately these e-mails are never from Barack Obama or David Cameron. And, as Decision Mechanics is not a government-funded think tank, we tend not to be analyzing confrontations just for the hell of it. However, a cursory analysis of the current situation in Crimea does raise … [Read more...]
Strategy: A History
This week's Economist (2 November 2013) has a review of military strategy historian Sir Lawrence Freedman's new book, "Strategy: A History". The Economist says that "[strategy] is about employing whatever resources are available to achieve the best outcome in situations that are both dynamic and contested" In the book, Freedman himself writes, "It is about getting more out of a situation … [Read more...]