More information is not always better information, or leads to better decisions

Quick update for a busy, cold Monday in the Northeast. Over the weekend while enjoying my typical evening of NBA League Pass and catching up on some reading, I ran into this excellent piece on the Behavioural Investment blog titled 'Can More Information Lead to Worse Investment Decisions.'

In the piece, author Joe Wiggins references a research study titled 'Effects of Amount of Information on Judgement Accuracy and Confidence' that was published in 2008 in the academic journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, (I trust you are all up to date on your stack of these journals). Long, (really long) story short, the researchers found that having more information available that was meant to help subject make decisions had interesting and counter-intuitive effects. Essentially, more information did not increase the quality of decision making in a significant way, while at the same time increasing the subject's level of confidence in their decisions, which as we just noted, did not in fact get any better.

Here's a simple chart from one of the experiments showing what happened to decision quality and subject confidence when more information and data about the decision was made available to subjects. 

The data above shows how subjects in the study had to forecast a winner for a number of college football games based on sets of anonymised statistical information about the teams  The information came in blocks of 6 (so for the first trial of predictions the participant had 6 pieces of data) and after each subsequent trial of predictions they were given another block of information, up to 5 blocks (or 30 data points in total), and had to update their predictions.  Participants were asked to predict both the winner and their confidence in their judgement between 50% and 100%. The aim of the experiment was to understand how increased information impacted both accuracy and confidence in their decisions/predictions.

Joe at Behavioural Investment sums up the results of the experiment really well:

The contrasting impact of the additional information is stark – the accuracy of decision making is flat, decisions were little better with 30 statistics than just 6, however, participant confidence that they could select the winner increased materially and consistently.  When we come into possession of more, seemingly relevant, information our belief that we are making the right decision can be emboldened even if there is no justification for this shift in confidence levels.

A really important reminder and a kind of a warning for any of us, say in HR in 2019, who are increasingly seeking to and are more able to gather more and more data and information to use and apply in HR and talent decision making. If more information does not always, (or maybe ever), lead to better decisions, then we need to be really much more careful how we plan to gather, process, and apply data for decision making. 

The most basic takeaway from this kind of study is that we probably need to spend much more time thinking about what data and information is meaningful or predictive towards making a decision, rather than increasing our efforts to simply gather more and more data, from all the possible available sources, under the probably false impression that more = better.

There are plenty of reasons why we are inclined to gather more data is we can - we might not know what information is actually relevant, so we look to simply collect data, we want to show we did a lot of research before taking a decision, or we want to be more comfortable with our decision if it is supported by more data. 

But I think it's best to start small with our data sets we apply to decisions, take time to test if the data we already possess is meaningful and predictive before chasing more data for its own sake.

Ok, that's it, I'm out - have a great week!

HRE Column: HCM Trends for 2019

Heading into the final stretch of 2018 and I wanted to share with you, gentle reader, the latest installment of the monthly Inside HR Tech Column that runs on Human Resource Executive Online.

The piece is titled HR Technology Trends You Can't Afford to Ignore, and is a look at some imporant HR and HR Technolgy trends inspired by a recently released report, 2019 HCM Trends Report, from three of the best independent HR and HR tech analysts in the space.

Here's an excerpt from the piece on HRE:

With the end of the year fast approaching, it is natural to turn our attention to the coming year, which means reading, thinking and talking with HR-technology leaders about the trends, developments and new technologies they think will have the most impact for HR organizations in the new year. Fortunately for me, three industry experts who are regular speakers at the HR Technology Conference—George LaRocque, Ben Eubanks and Trish McFarlane—recently released the 2019 HCM Trends Report, which identifies several of the big-picture HCM and workplace trends that will impact organizations and shape the direction of HR-technology innovation in 2019.

I recommend downloading and reading the entire (free) report here, but I also wanted to highlight three of what I think are the more important HCM trends that the authors lay out in the report. I’ll also suggest some ways HR-technology innovation will reflect these trends in 2019 and offer recommendations for HR leaders on how to move forward.

Practical Applications of AI at Work

If there was one term that seemed to shape much of the HR-technology conversation in 2018, it was artificial intelligence. Like many macro-technology trends that have come before (SaaS, mobile, UX, etc.), AI is now increasingly applied to support HR and talent-management functions. But like many emerging technologies of the past, AI seems more like just a cool set of capabilities still in search of the right problems to help solve.

In the 2019 HCM Trends Report, Eubanks makes a great point about where the AI conversation needs to head in 2019 stating, “The thing that’s going to change in 2019 is a greater focus on the actual, practical impacts of AI. It’s no longer enough to shout that your technology has machine learning or automation capabilities if you want attention—you’ll have to explain the problems it solves, or risk being overshadowed by those that do.”

The takeaway for HR leaders who are thinking about how to make AI-enabled HR-technology plans for 2019? Make sure you press any potential technology provider for demonstrable examples of real-world applications of these AI tools, and the ability to see quantifiable results of these projects. In 2019, AI must move past the “hype” and begin to deliver real returns, or as Eubanks correctly implies, the technologies—and your efforts using them—will not be successful.

Read the rest at HRE Online...

You can also subscribe on HRE Online to get my monthly Inside HR Tech column via email here. I promise it will be the most exciting email you will ever receive. 

Thanks for checking out the column, the blog, the podcasts, the 'Alexa' show, and all the nonsense I'm now in my second decade of churning out. 

Have a great day!

HRE Column: Navigating #HRTech Mergers and Acquisitions

Shaking off the post-Thanksgiving holiday turkey coma to share with you, gentle reader, the latest installment of the monthly Inside HR Tech Column that runs on Human Resource Executive Online.

The piece is titled Navigating Mergers and Acquisitions in HR Tech, and is a look at some recent M&A activity in the HR Tech space, and offers some suggestions for HR leaders as to how to best protect their organization's investments in HR tech in this climate.

Here's an excerpt from the piece on HRE:

Recently, several significant mergers and acquisitions in the HR-technology market have made news. From Ultimate Software acquiring PeopleDoc to Saba Software acquiring Lumesse (and Halogen Software before that) to the latest and largest announcement that SAP will acquire Qualtrics for $8 billion in cash, there has been no shortage of wow-inducing developments in HR tech.

But while these announcements certainly produce headlines and get analyzed for their impact on share prices, market share and the software company’s long-term futures, we often tend to overlook one really important constituency that is impacted by these M&A events: the customers of the company that gets acquired.

While the M&A announcements and subsequent comments from executives of the acquiring company usually talk a little about what the future may hold for the acquired product and its customers, there definitely can be some uncertainty about the future direction of an acquired company and product set. For customers of those products, it is important to understand what an M&A event may mean for them, and to be as prepared as possible for any impacts—including changes that can significantly alter the customer’s HR technology platforms and future direction.

If your company is a customer/user of an HR-technology solution that has been acquired by another HR-tech provider, here are three things to consider as you react to the news:

Read the rest at HRE Online...

You can also subscribe on HRE Online to get my monthly Inside HR Tech column via email here. I promise it will be the most exciting email you will ever receive. 

Thanks for checking out the column, the blog, the podcasts, the 'Alexa' show, and all the nonsense I'm now in my second decade of churning out. 

Have a great week!

Creating 'Psychological Personal Space' at Work

Blame the 'open plan' office design that pretty much takes away individual privacy or blame the workplace information overload that causes many office dweller types to feel like no matter how much they are working, they never seem to feel like they are getting much accomplished, modern work and workplaces can seem really, really frustrating.

People always in your face, or at least in your peripheral vision, few quiet places to retreat to in order to get some peace and quiet and really focus, and more and varied incoming requests for our time and attention, (emails, texts, Slack messages, etc.) than ever before all conspire to make it really hard sometimes to do our best work - or any work for that matter.

Wouldn't you like, at least sometimes, to fence yourself off from these kinds of distractions? To be able to, even if you don't have a physical 'retreat' space to head to at work, (not counting going to sit in your car in the parking lot), create some kind of semblance of private and personal space - to be alone with your thoughts, your work, yourself? 

Enter a new idea from the fine folks at Panasonic - the 'Wear Space' - a kind of combination privacy screen and set of noise-canceling Bluetooth headphones that functions like a set of horse blinders, except for people. The Wear Space wraps around the user's head, blocks most of their peripheral vision, allowing them to focus on their work that is in front of them. The nature of the Wear Space also signals to the wearer's pesky co-workers that they should probably not bother or disturb the person, as he/she clearly does not want to be illuminated by tales of how you spent your weekend or what is on the menu for lunch today.

According to one of the Wear Space's developers - the Wear Space is supposed to create a “psychological personal space” for the wearer to help them concentrate, particularly in noisy, distracting, open-plan offices. The device isn’t intended to just isolate the wearer but also communicate with others, telling them: Go away, I’m busy.

I don't have too much more to offer on the Wear Space as a technology, but just to say that if we need to invent a kind of ridiculous looking combination head covering, noise canceling, giant barrier to wear in order to try and cut down interruptions and distractions at work probably means that we are not taking enough time or care in designing work and workplaces so that these kinds of gimmicks are not needed in the first place.

We all probably do need some way to find 'psychological personal space' when we are at work. It probably should also be something not that hard to find as well.

Have a great week!

Expanding the Capabilities of Voice Assistants

Amazon recently was granted a new patent for an advance in the capability of it's voice assistant, 'Alexa', that enables the Alexa to detect a user's emotional, physical and behavioral states, just from the the user's voice and other audio signals. The technology would allow Alexa to recognize audible cues, such as a sneeze, or a cough or a certain cues from the user's tone of voice, and interpret those cues, along with the words the user has spoken, to better understand how a user is feeling, mentally and/or physically, and provide  tailored responses based on that information.

Have a look at the image below, courtesy of this piece on Business Insider for a graphic of how this kind of an interaction, and how Alexa will attempt to use these audio cues to respond.

The image may be a bit hard to see, so I can try and spell it out for you. The user indicates that she is hungry, but while trying to say the sentence "I'm hungry", she both coughs and sniffles. Alexa responds by asking 'Would you like a recipe for chicken soup?', a very specific response to the statement 'I'm hungry.' In this case Alexa has 'heard' the user's cough and sniffle, and the statement indicating hunger, and replied with an offer of a recipe for chicken soup - a type of food long associated as one that people who are sick would appreciate. Alexa doesn't 'know' the user is sick, the user has not stated that in words, but the cough and sniffle, behaviors that can often indicate an illness of some kind, are included in Alexa's consideration of the best reply to the user's 'I'm hungry' statement.

As the interaction between Alexa and the user continues, Alexa asks the user if she would like Alexa to order her come cough drops, to which the user replies 'yes' - still having never explicitly indicated to Alexa that she is sick or experiencing and symptoms of illness. Alexa submits the order for the user and will let her know when it is completed.

This is a simple example of how Alexa, or any voice assistant technologies really, are likely to evolve over time, to move from simply being 'order followers' to something much more sophisticated and potentially more powerful. Instead of just following commands kind of like a well-trained puppy, Alexa would be able to suggest actions, directions, products, etc. that perhaps the users had not thought about yet themselves, but would find relevant, timely, effective, and engaging.

The initial reporting on this patent from Amazon focuses, (naturally), on Amazon's business strenghts - surfacing and presenting product recommendations to users that match what the users want and need at the right time, and then helping the users order said products and delivering them to the user as quickly as possible. But I'd like to think about how this kind of innovative application of voice technology may apply one day at work and in workplace settings. Here are just some possibilities:

1. An employee accesses their voice-assistant HR system to request some HR information. The voice assistant 'hears' coughs and sniffles like in the above example and suggests that the employee may need some rest, or even to book an appointment with the company's mobile app that provides 'on-demand' medical consultation service.

2. An employee completes a project and the voice assistant asks her to give some feedback on how she thought the project went. The VA senses some stress in the user's voice, and her project summary indicates some real issues with some members on the team. The VA can send information to the project team providing some recommended further actions and remedies for the situation, as well as tips for the project leader to deal with this employee's frustration.

3. If in the interaction with the HR voice assistant, the VA senses some general anxiety or stress, it could present the user with a prompt to enable the workplace wellness voice application or skill, or suggest some common stress remediation approaches or exercises. The user may not have ever searched for or even be aware of these services, but the VA can sense they may need them in the moment.

These are just some ways that more intelligent and sophisticated applications are evolving in the voice assistant marketplace. And just like almost every consumer tech advance of the last 30 years, pretty soon these capabilities will be available in workplaces - and employees will demand them.

I think voice is the most interesting tech sandbox right now - I am really interested in how it will play out.

Have a great day!