Analysis paralysis
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Analysis paralysis is a phrase that describes a situation where the opportunity cost of decision analysis exceeds the benefits that could be gained by enacting some decision, or to informal or nondeterministic situations where the sheer quantity of analysis overwhelms the decision making process itself, thus preventing a decision. The phrase applies to any situation where analysis may be applied to help make a decision and may be a dysfunctional element of organizational behavior. This is often phrased as paralysis by analysis, in contrast to extinct by instinct.
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[edit] Software development
In software development, analysis paralysis typically manifests itself through exceedingly long phases of project planning, requirements gathering, program design and data modeling, with little or no extra value created by those steps. When extended over too long a timeframe, such processes tend to emphasize the organizational (i.e., bureaucratic) aspect of the software project, while detracting from its functional (value-creating) portion.
Analysis paralysis often occurs due to the lack of experience on the part of business systems analysts, project managers or software developers, as well as a rigid and formal organizational culture.
Analysis paralysis is an example of an anti-pattern. Agile software development methodologies explicitly seek to prevent analysis paralysis by promoting an iterative work cycle that emphasizes working products over product specifications.
[edit] Workplace
Analysis paralysis can be used to describe the way that information affects workplace productivity. An overload of physical mail, email, internet websites, voicemails, telephone and cellphone calls, memos, faxes, and interpersonal communication can make it difficult or impossible for employees to make decisions.
[edit] Sports
Analysis paralysis is a critical problem in athletics. It can be explained in simple terms as "failure to react in response to over-thought." A victim of sporting analysis paralysis will frequently think in complicated terms of "what to do next" while contemplating the variety of possibilities, and in doing so exhausts the available time in which to act.
[edit] Casual analysis paralysis
There are additional situations in which analysis paralysis can be identified, but in which the phenomenon is often accidental or coincidental.
[edit] Personal analysis
Casual analysis paralysis can occur during the process of trying to make personal decisions if the decision-maker overanalyzes the circumstance with which he or she is faced. When this happens, the sheer volume of analysis overwhelms the decision-maker, weighing him or her down so much he or she feels overwhelmed with the task and is thus unable to come to a rational conclusion. Such a circumstance is more formally known as cognitive distortion.
[edit] Conversational analysis
Although analysis paralysis can actually occur at any time, regarding any issue in typical conversation, it is particularly likely to occur during elevated, intellectual discussions. During such intellectual discussion, analysis paralysis involves the over-analysis of a specific issue to the point where that issue can no longer be recognized, and the subject of the conversation is lost. Usually, this happens because complex issues (which are often the basis of elevated, intellectual conversation) are intricately connected with various other issues, and the pursuit of these various issues makes logical sense to the participants. Below is an example of how analysis paralysis might affect a conversation about human rights:
- Human rights
- China's one child policy
- Female infanticide
- Moral implications
- Individual versus the common good
- …
All of these issues are closely related and each issue brings up yet another related one. The assumption is that, eventually, the analysis will move on so far astray that the initial issue of human rights becomes a sub-issue or is no longer even recognizable to the current topic under discussion.
Often, analysis paralysis is unavoidable and in some cases even desirable; the exploration of related issues can often lead to a solution (if a true solution is ever possible in such conversations) of the main issue at hand.
[edit] Board games
In board games, analysis paralysis denotes a state where a player is so overwhelmed by the decision tree that he or she faces that the player's turn takes an inordinate amount of time. The connotation is often pejorative, implying that the slowing of the game diminished the enjoyment by other players.
