Data Driven Decision Making

Decision making has long been a subject of study and given the explosive growth of Big Data over
the past decade, its not surprising that data-driven decision making is one of the most promising
applications in the emerging discipline of data science.
The practice of basing decisions on the analysis of data rather than purely on intuition
Foster Provost & Tom fawcett

Decision making spans across a broad spectrum :

Operational Decisions at one end of the spectrumHighly structured , routine , short term oriented .
Strategic Decisions on the other These kind of
decisions are taking by high levels of management as
they set long term directions and policies.

Data driven decision making in

schools .
Schools across the United states of America are
implement D3M to improve college readiness of
students.

Theory of action for data driven

decision making :
The ultimate goal is the improvement of student
achievement and college readiness . The general theory
of action for D3M involves three sequential steps
1. Assemble high quality raw data : Data might be
collected through formative , diagnostic and
summative assessments , standardized tests and
college and career readiness tests etc.
2. Conduct analysis that ensures resulting data are
relevant and diagnostic : Data that are not relevant
will not be used .
3. Use relevant and diagnostic data to inform

How Walmart implements D3M

A few years ago , as Hurricane Frances threatened to hit
on Floridas Atlantic coast , Wal-Mart stores executives
were trying to predict what kinds of merchandise they
should stock in their stores in the affected areas .
Based on analysis of past purchases in other Walmart
stores under similar conditions , experts mined data and
found that products beyond the usual flashlights ,
batteries and bottled water.
They found out that demand of Strawberry pop tarts
were 7 times than usual. Also , beer was likely to be the
top selling item .