Point-Counterpoint. Your turn

That said, even though you’re reporting 6s and 7s together (assuming also 3s, 4s and 5s together?), does the expanded scale provide you with insight that prescribes a different treatment? If not, then even though your high-schore-shy respondent was given greater freedom of expression, the 7-point scale doesn’t seem to change the outcome does it?

Although even as I type it, I wonder if greater freedom of expression for your respondents isn’t plenty of justification?

Let the banter continue!
~Geek~

My research shows 7 as the preferred scale.

Comments?

To the contrary, this would make you very popular at my cocktail party!

Your ideas remind me of Malcolm Gladwell’s book *Blink* and Jonah Lehrer’s recent book, *How We Decide*.

Both argue that we are, in fact, processing lots of data in just milliseconds when we make decisions in the absence of “measurable data”.

Lehrer takes the argument further by talking about the equally important roles our emotional and rational brain centers play in decision-making. This could explain why a decision sometimes just feels right, as you said.

Now, how can I achieve that zen state you were talking about? That sounds nice.

A couple of other random but loosely related thoughts spurred by your post…

Some of this — for example: “our measurement strategy is to determine how well we have designed and delivered an intervention to support a specific business process” — sounds like a measurement “tactic” to me, rather than “Measurement Strategy,” with initial caps. “We measure everything we do” sounds philosophical. I think of strategy as occupying the middle ground between philosophy and tactic. Is the gist of your talk really strategy? I’m not just being rhetorical to be a pain — i’m struggling with the same issue on a “strategy” talk I have coming up too. What’s the right level of detail for a “strategy”-level presentation??

Lastly, and this is probably another blog post altogether… Closely tied into the idea of what to measure is whether the solution (usually training) is in fact the correct solution to the business need. Often, training is the solution to an indirect problem: people need training on the software because the software is poorly designed; sales are down because the new product isn’t competitive, not because the sale team needs training on how to close a deal.

Now if you come up with a way to measure whether training is the right intervention to a business need, or whether the money would have been better spent elsewhere, then you’ve got a talk that i’d pay to hear!

The key elements that I recommend for any measurement strategy are:
1. Get one- understand what you are seeking to prove, and why
2. It’s not a yes/no question… data, and patterns in data, are powerful
3. Observe pattern, apply to ‘why’ rather than just ‘what’
4. We’re not in stats class, it’s okay to be both inductive and deductive at the same time on the same data set