Forecasting and Management of Technology, Second Edition

5.7 Communicating Search Results

Decision makers may well have concerns about what data were used and how analyses were done so that they can assess the validity of monitoring results. To address these concerns, explicit explanations of the questions posed in Table 5.12 should be given in the report.

Table 5.12 Informing the Customer

Issue	Considerations
Bounding and Assumptions	How was the tech mining effort framed?
Information Resources Used	Which databases or other Internet resources were searched?
Which were not searched and why?
Were there coverage limitations of note?
Searching Algorithms Used	How well targeted are the resulting data and subsequent analyses?
Can you estimate what was excluded?
Data Cleaning	How dirty are the data?
Analytics	What analytical approaches were used and why?

Different users prefer different information presentation modes. Most people do best with visual representations, but others favor numeric and tabular presentations. Still others want to read or be presented with detailed explanations. Know your audience's preferences. In general, providing multiple representations works best; it allows users to key on their favored modality.

Users get used to familiar information forms. Established business decision processes, such as stage gate decision making, can reinforce this tendency by calling for standard forms. Many organizations use stage gate processes, wherein a development progresses through a series of decisions, each requiring ...