Comments on: The eye in your mud, or the mud in your eye? http://www.colin-beveridge.com/index.php/the-eye-in-your-mud-or-the-mud-in-your-eye/ joined-up management for a joined-up world ™ by Colin Beveridge Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:34:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Nic Hopkins http://www.colin-beveridge.com/index.php/the-eye-in-your-mud-or-the-mud-in-your-eye/comment-page-1/#comment-3454 Nic Hopkins Fri, 10 Apr 2009 21:03:17 +0000 http://www.colin-beveridge.com/?p=1657#comment-3454 I absolutely agree! What is even more likely is that spreadsheets can cloud the fact that data is generated to provide the answer the presenter first thought of - data or no! We've all seen options' appraisals manipulated by tweaking the starting values of the parameters. That said - if tweaking the parameters on the basis of debate about their significance and sensitivity is done openly and in recognition of a range of participants' subjectivity results in a decision, then sometimes some benefit can come from participants making a decision rather than not. It all depends on their understanding of what the decision making model means. If it's good the result may be helped by spreadsheets. But how many participants have the time to do this and this decide blinded by dancing numbers? I absolutely agree!
What is even more likely is that spreadsheets can cloud the fact that data is generated to provide the answer the presenter first thought of – data or no!
We’ve all seen options’ appraisals manipulated by tweaking the starting values of the parameters.

That said – if tweaking the parameters on the basis of debate about their significance and sensitivity is done openly and in recognition of a range of participants’ subjectivity results in a decision, then sometimes some benefit can come from participants making a decision rather than not. It all depends on their understanding of what the decision making model means. If it’s good the result may be helped by spreadsheets.

But how many participants have the time to do this and this decide blinded by dancing numbers?

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