Exploring “analytics” to make better decisions – the questions executives need to ask

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe in detail how executives' careful questioning can contribute to the decision analytics process. Design/methodology/approach – The paper lays out the questions that a senior executive should ask to guide analytics professionals in the analysis work they do. It also explains the rationale behind the questions. Findings – The paper finds that a set of well‐chosen questions can transform the quality and relevance of the outputs so that executive decision makers can be better informed and thus make better decisions. Practical implications – The questions senior executives should ask to guide analytics work are very similar to questions developed to guide competitive intelligence analysis. The process outlined here shows how executives and analytics professionals can work with each other to help ensure that decision relevant outputs are created. Originality/value – With this set of questions executives can guide analytics work so that it is not driven solely by the technology or expertise of the analytics professionals.