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 capture passages which I find interesting. And here's one example:

“subjective confidence

is a poor index

of the accuracy of a judgment.”

This relates to the idea that we too often think  that  our decisions, based on our expertise, should rule the day, without bothering for any objective analysis. Too often pundits, be they of the performance measurement professional, political, sports, or some other variety, tend to speak as if their opinions, which is all that they really are, are somehow factual. I am no doubt guilty of this myself, thinking that my judgment is sufficient to know what is true and factual. And while I'd like to think that more often than not I am correct, there are also times when I err.

When hearing someone pontificate about a subject it is wise to discern whether or not they are being presented with opinion or fact, derived from objective analysis. This holds true in all walks of life, including performance and risk measurement.