In his recent book, Thinking Fast and Slow, Economic Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman speaks of the "planning fallacy," a term he and his former collaborator, Amos Tversky, coined "to describe plans and forecasts that are unrealistically close to best-case scenarios...
Performance Perspectives Blog
Thoughts on performance measurement from David Spaulding and other members of our team.
Have you been a victim of “planning fallacy”?
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The value of subjective judgment
I must confess that I am enjoying Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow quite a bit; so much so that not only am I listening to it (via my Audible.com account) but am referencing it, too (via my Kindle download!). And so, this affords me the opportunity to...
Simple Question: What is a Cumulative Return?
I'm conducting a software certification for a client, and reviewing their documentation, which includes a statement that begins, "If you have a cumulative return..." However, they fail to define this term. And so, I will offer my thoughts. But, I decided to check...
It’s pi day!
I thank my wife for reminding me that today is "pi day." It should not go without notice."Pi day"???Yes, you remember pi, right? Recall that pi is a constant that is the ratio of any Euclidean circle’s circumference to its diameter. It's value is approximately...
Justifying claims and beliefs
I began listening to Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman this week, and am finding it to be both interesting and motivating. Daniel Kahneman is a Nobel Prize winner. In this book he discusses various studies that he and his colleagues conducted.It occurred to...
It pays to subscribe to Dictionary.com’s daily word
One of my favorite websites is www.Dictionary.com. I reference it frequently, when I come upon a word I'm unfamiliar with, or want to verify the meaning of a word I plan to use. I also subscribe to their "Word of the Day," which is usually a word I've never seen....
What is it about numbers that end with 0 or 5?
I've commented in the past about anniversaries, and how we tend to give greater emphasis to ones that end with the number five or zero. My wife and I will celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary this November (we were very young when we wed, as I can't be THAT old!),...
Writing reports
I think Susan Weiner's blog is a must place to visit for anyone who writes (and who doesn't?).In a recent post she discusses a new book, Reader Friendly Reports, by Carter A. Daniel. I have been writing reports on a regular basis for over 40 years. Some are short (a...
Is performance attribution incomplete?
On a recent drive to and from a GIPS(R) (Global Investment Performance Standards) verification client, I began to listen to a book on Einstein and some of his friends, which included Kurt Gödel. I don't recall hearing of Gödel before, but do recollect his...
Did the WSJ jinx the DJIA?
In today's WSJ, on page C1 there's an article titled "You Hear That? It's Quiet...Too Quiet," that mentions that it's been 45 trading days without a 100-point decline in the Dow, which is apparently the longest stretch since 2006.And what happens? Well, as of...