56: Spreadsheet mentality

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Dima and Slava discuss the spreadsheet mentality and the general difficulties of making data-driven decisions while not loosing the forest for the trees.

• Theme corner: Dima's season of decoupling
  • Talking to people helps in a lot of different situations

Spreadsheet mentality (sometimes called "spreadsheet thinking") refers to an overly mechanistic or reductionist approach to decision-making and management that relies too heavily on quantitative metrics while ignoring qualitative factors and nuance.

Improving a number while loosing track of why we started this in the first place.

• Measure = quantify, at least for the purposes of this discussion
• Cult of data-driven decisions
• Biweekly 52: Needs Analysis
• The “Traffic Light” Approach to Problem Solving
• Quotes on the topic
  • "What gets measured, gets managed.” – attributed to Peter Drucker or W. Edwards Deming
  • "Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." – W. Edwards Deming
  • "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” – Goodheart’s Law
  • “Tell me how you will measure me, and then I will tell you how I will behave. If you measure me in an illogical way, don’t complain about illogical behaviour.” – Eliyahu Goldratt