My wife [goldmark.org] teaches Judgment and Decision Making in a business school, and has reviewed a number of textbooks. She hasn't commented on this one, and I don't know whether she is even aware of it. But from reading the description of it, this is likely to be what she calls an "airport book". That is, a book that will sell to business travelers in airports. While there might be some research and value burried in the book, these tend to work like placebos. If you do
anything at all to consciously think about your decision making, you are likely to have some improvement.
The problem with airport books is that they are exceedinly selective in the research that they draw upon, and it is never fairly evaluated. Also conclusions are jumped to with great alacrity.
If you really want a good decision making book, my first recommendation is Jonathan Baron's "Thinking and Deciding [amazon.com]". It is an undergraduate textbook, which I think is very geek friendly. Indeed, it is a bit too geek friendly for my wife's students, so she uses more basic text books.
I don't know what the reviewed book contains. I do know how management people use what they call the "2 by 2 matrix". If that is the only tool discussed in the book, then one should probably give it a miss. Any decision making book that doesn't discuss Bayesian reasoning is not something I would recommend to any geek. Baron's book I would. (And I have no connection with Baron).
I wouldn't mind hearing about a few more. Perhaps you could talk with your wife and make a list of four books or so which you think cover this topic for someone with a project management background (Tom DeMarco, Alistair Cockburn, Edward Yourdon)?
Here is what she sent me. But these seem to mostly be academic books that contain articles on the original research. I suspect that I phrased the query wrong.
The real stuff:
Terry Connolly, Hal R. Arkes and Kenneth R. Hammond (eds) (2000): Judgment and Decision Making (An interdisciplinary reader). Cambridge University Press: Cambridge
William M. Goldstein and Robin M. Hogarth (eds) (1997): Research on Judgment and Decision Making (Currents, connections and controversies) Cambridge University Press: Cambridg
Yes. A lot of the comments here seem unusually friendly towards the "using math in real life" aspect of this. I would expect a much more critical attitude.
The book referred to in the parent post might actually be described that way, but not the book under review (judging by the sample chapter). It is pure management fluff.
For example: two axes labled by ambiguous buzzwords do not a matrix make. If we were actually talking about matrices then there would be no reason not to extend the analysis beyong 2x2.
I had a boss who reckoned "Crossing the Chasm" and "Inside the Tornado" were airport books. I even summarised both books on a single sheet of A4 a few years back (http://www.minsystems.co.uk/download if you want your own copy of the pdf). Every time he asked for one concrete example of someone who'd applied the methodology end-to-end, we couldn't find anyone who had. Email to the Chasm Group also go no response:-(
I'm just a college kid with no real qualifications to chime in here. However... when I was in high school, we all got a free dayplanner that had cutsie sayings on every page, and a "how to study" guide in the back.
For the smart, motivated student, it was mostly crap and common sense. But there were a few gems - one was a 2x2 matrix of urgent vs. important. That one has stuck with me. I don't see very many situations, however, where things can be boiled down to 2 binary variables.
A real recommendation, not a placebo (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with airport books is that they are exceedinly selective in the research that they draw upon, and it is never fairly evaluated. Also conclusions are jumped to with great alacrity.
If you really want a good decision making book, my first recommendation is Jonathan Baron's "Thinking and Deciding [amazon.com]". It is an undergraduate textbook, which I think is very geek friendly. Indeed, it is a bit too geek friendly for my wife's students, so she uses more basic text books.
I don't know what the reviewed book contains. I do know how management people use what they call the "2 by 2 matrix". If that is the only tool discussed in the book, then one should probably give it a miss. Any decision making book that doesn't discuss Bayesian reasoning is not something I would recommend to any geek. Baron's book I would. (And I have no connection with Baron).
Re:A real recommendation, not a placebo (Score:1)
Thank you. It is now on my to-buy list.
I wouldn't mind hearing about a few more. Perhaps you could talk with your wife and make a list of four books or so which you think cover this topic for someone with a project management background (Tom DeMarco, Alistair Cockburn, Edward Yourdon)?
Re:A real recommendation, not a placebo (Score:2)
Re:A real recommendation, not a placebo (Score:1)
Re:A real recommendation, not a placebo (Score:1, Interesting)
The book referred to in the parent post might actually be described that way, but not the book under review (judging by the sample chapter). It is pure management fluff.
For example: two axes labled by ambiguous buzzwords do not a matrix make. If we were actually talking about matrices then there would be no reason not to extend the analysis beyong 2x2.
Re:A real recommendation, not a placebo (Score:1)
Are there real life examples in this 2x2 book?
Ian W.
Re:A real recommendation, not a placebo (Score:2)
For the smart, motivated student, it was mostly crap and common sense. But there were a few gems - one was a 2x2 matrix of urgent vs. important. That one has stuck with me. I don't see very many situations, however, where things can be boiled down to 2 binary variables.
Re:A real recommendation, not a placebo (Score:1)