Analy ze T h i s !
After analyzing a great
deal of historical data,
they find that a team’s late
season winning percentage
is not a significant
predictor of post-season
success. The Major League
Baseball playoffs, it seems,
are (at least statistically)
a whole new season.
surprising (e.g., “data scientists tend to work with
larger data sets integrated across more sources”),
there were some interesting insights that emerged
(e.g., “data scientists are far more likely to use prototypes to garner support for their projects” and
“data scientists are much more likely to be focused
on helping their organizations develop a unified
view of their customers”). Anyone interested in seeing a summary of these findings should feel free to
contact me via e-mail ([email protected]).
As part of this project, we also examined best
practices for managing data scientists. Our findings in this area are presented in a paper entitled
“Getting Value from Your Data Scientists” that was
recently published in the MIT Sloan Management
Review. The paper can be accessed online. Feel
free to send me an e-mail with your thoughts, reactions and comments.
San Francisco Giants. As I write this, my
beloved San Francisco Giants are playing in the
World Series, trying for their third championship in
the last five years. Like the rest of the orange-clad
Giants faithful, I am ecstatic at this year’s post-season success, but I must confess to also being a bit
surprised, for this year’s team won only 88 of 162
games (the lowest of any team that qualified for
this year’s post-season). Moreover, these Giants
finished a distant six games behind Los Angeles
Dodgers, their perennial rivals who once again captured the National League Western Division championship. Worse yet, the Giants struggled down the
stretch, winn