Don't outsouce your decisions

Work is simply whatever we must do to get from one decision to the next.

– Venkatesh Rao, Tempo

“That’s what the data say, so even though it sounds weird, we’re doing it”: this is terrible, and easily gamed. Even if you’re thoughtful about it in advance, there can be confounding parameters, or the metric(s) you picked may turn out to be even less representative of your intentions than you’d hoped for. And anyone who can influence the inputs can manipulate the outputs, giving them a silent vote that probably isn’t what you’re looking for.

Do gather the data, but don’t skip the gut check. If all the data comes back saying to go in direction A, and you know in your viscera that it’s wrong, find a way to validate further.

Ditch “data-driven” for “data-informed”. The decision is your responsibility. Delegating it to an Excel sheet (or an A/B test) is just that: delegating it.

Don’t outsource your decisions.

As a brief aside: this all presumes that you’re actually trying to make a balanced decision. If you’re just trying to justify a decision you’ve already made, gaming your inputs is a time-honored tradition. Just be aware that you’re doing it.