Decisions Over Decimals

CHAPTER 3Working Backward to Move Forward

We fail more often because we solve the wrong problem than because we get the wrong solution to the right problem.

— Russell L. Ackoff

In this chapter, we focus on the power of working backward, a different but complementary approach to the IWIK™ approach we discussed in the previous chapter to focus on the essential question. Whereas the IWIK approach takes a wide‐angle of working bottom‐up, from exploring an extensive list of IWIKs to uncover the essential question, working backward takes a top‐down approach. It allows you to start with the decision at hand and find the path back to the problem's conditions, to identify the minimum amount and scope of data and analyses that would enable you to make the decision. Starting with the impending decision and working backward also helps ensure that your decision‐making journey is data‐driven, purposeful, and action‐oriented.

Remember the story of Alice in Wonderland? The narrative arc involves a young girl named Alice falling down a rabbit hole and finding herself having to navigate a world of bizarre situations and characters. At one point in Lewis Carroll's 1865 story, our youthful protagonist finds herself at a fork in the road. Utterly confused, she asks the Cheshire Cat which path she should choose. “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” her feline consultant responds. “I don't much care where…,” says Alice, at which point the cat interjects, “Then it doesn't matter ...