The Tiger That Isn't - Seeing Through A World Of Numbers

Book Name : The Tiger That Isn't - Seeing Through A World Of Numbers

Author : Blastland And Dilnot

What is it about : In this book, the authors presented the ways to interpret and make sense of counting, survey, sampling, comparison, clustering, measurement, chance, target, size and other data-related information. All this information had been well talked-about topics, all too often appearing as eye-catching newspapers headlines - Happiness Index, School Ranking, Emergency Room Response Time, Operation Waiting Time, GDP Growth, Median Wage, Infant Mortality Rate etc. The book cut through all the patterns of stripes of leaves (red herrings and catchy sensationalism) and revealed the true "tigers" (significance) beyond.

Some thoughts after having read the book : Two of the examples mentioned in the book which I liked best, were the use of Key Performance Indices (KPI) to gauge the efficiency of the UK government departments and civil servants and secondly, the hospital emergency triage waiting times. I was especially impressed by many similar examples not because of the methodology deployed in these measurements but the ways the departments and hospital front line staff  used "gaming tactics" and "doctoring the data" by adjusting their work practices to give better looking numbers, all without the work being done or patients being treated. For instance, Patient Care as measured by the length of time a GP spent with each patient improved significantly to 10 minutes, not because the GP spent the time on diagnosis but rather spent the time on asking after the patient "How is Auntie Beryl and her cat doing?" Joke aside, the book presented many of these eye-opening examples of how deceptive "numbers" could be.

Would I recommend this book to you : A book welcomed and praised by all walks of lives including Bank Governors, Prime Minister Advisors, scientific communities and High Street newspapers for the book's clarity and cynical dissection of the motives behind these so-called surveys and KPI; as well as giving the general layman a few tools to understand the numbers, data and numerical information which we all had been flooded daily and thus avoiding the many pitfalls of being misled and misinformed - I would give a BIG thumbs up to this book and rank it A Must Read.