← Methods · Part 3 of 6
Dyed eggs laid out in a continuous gradient from pink through orange, yellow, green, blue and violet.
A gradient looks like one smooth thing from above. Up close, every step was somebody’s decision about where the next band starts.

The method is the decision that matters

Nearly every serious mistake we see in applied analytics is a method-selection error rather than an execution error — a predictive model answering a causal question, a significance test run on data that breaks its assumptions, a segment built from a variable that does not drive anything.

Five questions asked before any method is chosenIs this a why question or a how-many question?Why → qualitative first. How many → a sample that can carry the claim.Does the answer need to generalize?If yes, the sample decides everything. If no, depth beats breadth.Can this be observed instead of asked?Observed data avoids the gap between what people say and do.What else changed in the same period?Without this, any result is a guess wearing a number.What would prove me wrong?If nothing would, it is not a finding. It is an opinion.
Choosing correctly matters more than being able to run any of them.

Being able to run a technique is not the hard part and has not been for years. Knowing which one the question calls for, and being willing to say the data cannot support the conclusion somebody wants, is the part we take most seriously.

All 6 parts of Methods
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