Analysis Paralysis

“The usual approach to problem-solving is to identify and remove the cause of the problem. Sometimes this is not possible because the cause cannot be found; because there are too many causes; or because the cause is human nature and cannot be removed. In such cases we are usually paralysed.”

Edward deBono

It occurs when the activity of analyzing often simple matters to excess extremes. Analysis Paralysis is an informal phrase applied to when the opportunity cost of decision analysis exceeds the benefits. This makes the simple seem overcomplex and eventually in an ending state of inaction. It prevents people from doing quickly what can and should be done quickly.

A good example is a decision by a group of ten to twenty people on a desired dining location. It is next to impossible to make the entire group happy, so a smaller group must decide and inform in order to get a simple decision made quickly. In this case, the Alternate Choice method is best employed. Unless there is a strict deadline, most people analyze a decision until there's no time left. Similarly with procrastination. If you are allowed to procrastinate, you will. You wait until the last possible moment to do something. People who are in the analysis paralysis stage, procrastinate in making the commitment to a decision. By not making a decision, you think you have lots of choices open. Wrong! It's an Illusion of Flexibility.

Until you commit and eliminate options, you're stuck in the land of endless possibilities. Procrastinating only postpones the future. Enevitably you must decide, or face the consequences.

Often there is total inaction in the aftermath of the "overanalysis". The indecisive individual lands in this situation on almost all everyday decisions. They experience a a near total inability to differentiate between the large and the small and the important and the unimportant. They cannot fit the analysis and action to the task at hand.

Analysis paralysis applies to any situation where analysis may be use to make a decision and may become dysfunctional. It occurs when the analyst takes too long to look at small details. It occurs when data is taken from a biased approach, when data was filtered prematurely or data was slanted inappropriately. It can also occur when too many tools were used to decide.

In software development, analysis paralysis manifests itself through exceedingly long phases of project planning, requirements gathering, program design and modeling, with little or no extra value created by those steps in excess.

Analysis paralysis tends to emphasize the red tape, and detract from the functional benefits. It is analysis beyond value creation. It often occurs often due to the lack of experience on the part of business systems analysts, project managers or developers, as well as a rigid and formal organizational culture.

Sometimes, the analysis moves into an area so far astray from the original objective, that negative impacts may occur. Sometimes, the decision maker or his team will gather so much data they are overwhelmed and confused about what is relevant and what is no longer relevant.

Often, the decision team may use Decision Bias, and the analysis is impossible to complete in a valuable manner because undesirable facts have been removed by the biased party. When a decision is being made to solve a problem, root cause analysis may become paralyzed when the cause cannot be found. If the cause isn't found within a reasonable time frame, it should be questioned as being a problem in the first place.

In some cases, the paralyzed is so because they cannot Deal with uncertainty. It is certainly very difficult when it is not clear what will happen if a decision is made in a particular way. Often a group will attempt to get around this problem by conducting more and more studies and gather more information to try to eliminate all uncertainty. They want to find a risk-free way of making a decision.

Unfortunately, this is usually impossible. Science or computations, Decision Making Models and Decision Making Tools are seldom able to resolve complex decisions completely, but only with in a range of uncertainty, which can sometimes be very large.

In these cases the additional analysis accomplish little more than delaying decisions and resolution. This in turn, results in the continuation of a bad situation which is often worse than the other options being considered by decision makers.