Page 110 - The McKinsey Mind

04 (083-102B) chapter 4 1/29/02 4:50 PM Page 85

Interpreting the Results 85

UNDERSTANDING THE DATA

After you’ve run all the numbers and conducted all the interviews,
you will have a huge pile of facts to sift through. Your job is to sort
the wheat from the chaff, to separate the irrelevant factoids from
the data that actually prove or disprove your hypothesis, and then
to piece together the story those data tell. This requires not just the
ability to understand the meaning of the individual analyses, but
the imagination to put the disparate facts together into a coherent
narrative. This is not always easy, as one of our more blunt-spoken
alumni said: “It’s a whole lot easier to gather and package data
than it is to think.”
The actual techniques you would use to analyze your data will
vary depending on the individual analyses you are doing, the com-
pany you work for, and the business in which you operate. In this
section, rather than demonstrate any particular analysis, we will
show you how to take the results of whichever analyses you choose
and assemble them into something that will allow you to make a
very important decision.
Yogi Berra famously remarked, “If you come to a fork in the
road, take it.” At this point in the problem-solving process, you’ve
reached a fork in the road; the results of your analyses can take
you in one of two directions. If your analysis proves your hypoth-
esis, then you need to move on to the next section of this chapter
and figure out what course of action the data imply. If the data dis-
prove your hypothesis, then you need to revisit and restructure
your initial hypothesis to fit the data. This may or may not require
additional analysis as well. We, with the help of our alumni, will
show you how to choose which fork to take.