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...]

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...]

The UK's Operational Research Society has published "When spreadsheets go bad" in the October issue of their OR Insight magazine. … [Read more...]

This week The Economist published an article ("This spreadsheet is different", 21 September 2013) apologizing for a earlier article that was based on erroneous analysis. The problem was caused by a spreadsheet model that ...pulled data [...] from the wrong place in the spreadsheet, changing the results. We've written about the problems with spreadsheets before. They are opaque, brittle and … [Read more...]

Confrontation analysis provides a framework for understanding complex interactions. Its formality brings structure to the unstructured. Over the past week I've been using it to think about the Syrian crisis---i.e. the US' intention to bomb Syria in response to Assad's alleged use of chemical weapons. One thing stands out from this casual analysis---where's the confrontation? The US isn't … [Read more...]