TOPIC 8 - Sensemaking: From scanning to good judgement Flashcards
What does the iceberg analogy in sensemaking signify?
Connecting events to deeper causes” with layers such as “EVENTS: What is happening?”, “PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOR: What trends are there over time?”, “SYSTEMS STRUCTURE: How are the parts related? What influences the patterns?”, and “MENTAL MODELS: What values, assumptions, beliefs shape the system?”
What is meant by the statement “Looking is easy, seeing is hard” in the context of horizon scanning and sensemaking?
This suggests that while it may be simple to look at information, truly understanding and interpreting it to make good judgments is challenging.
What does “our eyes are not a clear window” and “where you look from is always half the picture.”
Bias. Everyone perceives the world differently.
What are some examples of judgment biases that can affect decision-making?
Anchoring bias, availability heuristic, bandwagon effect, confirmation bias, outcome bias, and recency.
Why are analysts particularly vulnerable to the Dunning-Kruger effect?
Analysts thrive on the new.
Those who hype have venture capital and PR.
Analysts have a bias toward change, because it’s more interesting to analyze.
Analysts seek examples that reinforce the new thing.
The penalty for being wrong is less than the penalty for missing the trend.
What are the ‘Wetware problems’ in seeing and recognition?
Lamp-post problem, missing the bigger picture, misrecognition of the unfamiliar, inattention blindness/gorilla test, paradigms, mental models, framing, fast thinking, and various judgment biases.
What is anchoring bias and how can it affect decision-making?
Anchoring bias is when people are over-reliant on the first piece of information they hear, such as in salary negotiations where the first offer sets the perceived range of reasonable possibilities.
How does availability heuristic lead to flawed reasoning?
Availability heuristic causes people to overestimate the importance of information that is readily available to them, like assuming smoking is not unhealthy because they know someone who lived to 100 and smoked heavily.
What is the bandwagon effect and its impact on group decision-making?
The bandwagon effect describes how the probability of one person adopting a belief increases based on the number of people who hold that belief, often leading to groupthink and unproductive meetings.
What is confirmation bias and why is it problematic?
Confirmation bias is the tendency to listen only to information that confirms our preconceptions, making it difficult to have intelligent conversations about complex issues like climate change.
How does outcome bias alter our perception of decisions?
Outcome bias involves judging a decision based on the outcome rather than the decision-making process, such as thinking gambling was smart because it led to a win.
What is recency bias and its effect on judgments?
Recency bias is the tendency to weigh the latest information more heavily than older data, which can lead to poor decisions if current trends are assumed to continue unchanged.
