Ego-less Analysis

“I have also been working on motives (Process 2). Have a look at this.”

I showed her the products of my analysis of motives based on the conversations I had conducted with everyone as part of Process 1.

Name	Motives	Other factors
Lord Todd	None identified so far.	Doesn’t care about his staff. Has as little to do with them as possible.
Arthur Court	None identified so far.	Not well liked by other staff, but not hated.
Brian Bates	Lost c£1,500 to Arthur playing cards. Disliked Arthur.	Ex-army. Knows how to fight and has experience of it.
Connor Chambers	Lost c£2,000 to Arthur playing cards.	Ex-army. Knows how to fight and has experience of it.
Danny D’Eath	Wants a relationship with Erica…Arthur knew about this and could have told Lord Todd. It is against the rules of employment for staff to have romantic relationships. Arthur had never said or hinted he would though. May have known (from Erica) that Arthur may have liked Erica as well.	Ex-army. Knows how to fight and has experience of it.
Erica Echoes	Wants a relationship with Danny…Arthur knew about this (see Danny). Erica thinks that Arthur liked her as well.	Erica knew that Arthur was sneaking out some evenings (breaking his employment contract). Hasn’t told anyone including Danny.
Frank Flowers	Grows and sells fruit and veg on Lord Todd’s land but sells some for personal profit. Arthur knew and could have told Lord Todd and threatened to. Arthur teased Frank about his employment position (Arthur thought Frank has the lowest status job of the employees). Arthur had “landed” Frank in trouble a couple of times with Lord Todd.
Gareth Garfield	None identified so far.	Kept from Lord Todd that he has a spent conviction for mugging (15 years ago). Unknown if Arthur knew but could have done…

“You’ve left a motive out,” said Ms D.

“Have I?”

“Yes: Lord Todd is – to an extent – paranoid…I should know…TripleA gets good business from Lord Todd because of it.”

“Fair enough. Could go under 'other factors' I suppose….”

“No: the fact that he is paranoid means his reasoning will be suspect and that leads to possible motive, doesn’t it? And, even if he is not paranoid but has good reason for such tight security, well…he has not told you about that, and that in itself is worrying from a motives perspective.”

Wham! She had me there, She was right, no doubt of that. Now that she had said it I could see that I had been suppressing it: you don’t really want to include in your deliverables documents information that could be taken the wrong way by the very person who is paying your invoice. “Could be taken the wrong way”? Who am I kidding? Lord Todd would go stratospheric if he read that in my analysis.

I was (to coin a phrase) caught between a rock and a hard place…Rock: Ms D’s reasoning was correct – Lord Todd was paranoid (or under real threat of some sort he was keeping to himself) and so could have a motive. Hard place: putting it in the report would result in at the very least an “interesting” chat with Lord Todd.

So I had two problems – Ms D had definitely found a legitimate flaw in my analysis and what do you do when the products of your analysis may be unpalatable to your employer?

Strangely they are 2 sides of the same coin: ego. I was embarrassed that Ms D had “caught me out” and I was worried that Lord Todd would be angry with me. Both of these relied on my feelings, feelings that damaged my ego.

If I was more concerned with finding out the truth rather than looking good, the fact that Ms D had “caught me out” would not be relevant and I would not be bothered. Indeed, I would be grateful that the flaw had been exposed and so could be fixed: Ms D had done me a favour!

If I was more concerned with finding out the truth rather than looking good, the fact Lord Todd might be angry with me (his decision of course) would not be relevant. It literally would not matter to me.

Ideally all analysis is ego-less, but I am human and we humans are ego-full creatures (therefore I am ego-full!). Maybe I can’t change that but I can acknowledge it and deal with it when it arises.

“That’s true,” I said. “and I will add that motive to Lord Todd’s entry. Thank-you.”

Yeah, well, acknowledging my ego and dealing with it rationally doesn’t mean I don’t feel stupid sometimes and – thinking of my next review meeting Lord Todd – scared at others.

Case Solved (II)

“Great!” I said. “Who dunnit?”.

“Erica.” Ms D looked smug. “Surprised you haven’t already spotted it.”

“Spotted what?”

“That she got to Arthur’s room before Danny! Look, everyone rushed to Arthur’s room when they heard him scream and arrived in order of distance from his room apart from Erica. Therefore she’s lying, therefore she has something to hide – such as attacking Arthur. QED.”

“QED? I don’t think you are demonstrating anything other than faulty logic.” Tact is alien to me just when I need it most… it’s why I have my own business and work with no-one, it’s not through choice…

“Really?” She dropped my documents back on the table, folded her arms and turned to face me square on. How’s that for non-verbal body language? “So why did Erica get there before Danny?”

“Sorry,” I began. “I know I can come across as arrogant, but that doesn’t mean I am. Usually it’s because I am thinking as I am speaking and things come out of my mouth that really need to be reformatted!” I smiled. No smile back. “Look, the problem is like my seeming arrogantness. Just because I seem arrogant it doesn’t follow that I am. Just because Erica didn’t arrive in the “correct” order doesn’t mean she is lying.”

“Why not?”

“Well, alright, she could be lying. Or everyone else could be lying and she could be the only one telling the truth: they all arrived early and she arrived after them. Or she could have already been in the room – perhaps her and Arthur were an item. Or she could be a faster runner, or wake up quicker. Or – well, you get the idea. The facts you have (Erica arrived quicker) do not result in only one possible outcome (that she is the attacker).”

We analysts need to know a lot about logic. Ms D had suggested that there was a line of deductive reasoning which runs as “given this, then that must be true.” For example, “Given Tinkerbelle is a fairy and that fairies can fly, it must be true that Tinkerbelle can fly.” This only holds if all fairies can always fly. Suppose it is possible that while normally fairies can fly sometimes a wicked witch can put a spell on them and they can’t. Assuming they are still fairies (that is, that losing the ability to fly does not stop them being classed as a fairy) then the example “Given Tinkerbelle is a fairy and that fairies can fly, it must be true that Tinkerbelle can fly.” Is no longer correct. We analysts need to test the assumption (that a fairy who can’t fly is still a fairy) and turn the assumption in to a fact (or recognise the risk we are running the assumption is false and mitigate it). We also treasure and value deductive reasoning as that discovers new facts (if our assumptions are correct) such as the deduced fact that Tinkerbelle can fly.

There is another major class of reasoning called inductive reasoning. Take one fact and generalise it out. For example, “Tinkerbelle is a fairy and Tinkerbelle can fly. Therefore all fairies can fly.” Hopefully you can see that there are many scenarios where the premises would still be true (the premises in this case are “Tinkerbelle is a fairy and Tinkerbelle can fly”) but the conclusion may not be true (“all fairies can fly”). Inductive reasoning results in much weaker conclusions than deductive reasoning, that is they have a much higher risk of being wrong. Trouble is the vast majority of reasoning is inductive – it’s how we humans work.

Worse still – it is horrendously common (especially for analysts!) to confuse inductive reasoning with deductive reasoning and think that you have much stronger case than you do. Analysts need to spot faulty reasoning, turn assumptions in to facts (where they can) and build a strong a case as possible for whatever conclusions they come to.

Ms D had inductively reasoned “Erica arrived out of order of distance from the room” (specific fact) “therefore she is lying about everything” (inductive conclusion) “therefore she is the attacker” (inductive conclusion built on a “fact” arrived at inductively!). Worse still, Ms D thought this was an inevitable conclusion following on from her “facts"! But it does not necessarily follow that because Erica arrived out of order she is lying. Even if it was true she was lying it does not necessarily follow that she is the attacker.

Ms D went on the offensive: “So who did dunnit then?”

“Ah, well, glad you asked that.”

Analysis Products (II)

Ms Dixon was correct of course. But then that diagram had a specific job to do: help me sort out the analysis. Once done, I had summarised the results in to a set of readable and re-useable (i.e. electronic) documents.

In my experience, people seem to get hung up on every document at every stage being beautifully presented and understandable by anyone who picks it up whether they know about the subject material or not. I take a different view: every analysis document should have specific purpose and an intended audience.

If it does not satisfy the purpose or is not useable by the intended audience then it is quite literally a waste of time.

For example, the purpose of my diagram was to sort out who was where doing what when. The intended audience was me. The diagram had done its job. Tick in the box.

Given the understanding the diagram had helped me gain, I needed to summarise and reformat the findings in to other documents whose purpose was to communicate the findings of the analysis to Ms Dixon (to progress our processes) and Lord Todd (who wanted to know this information and was paying for it).

It seemed to me that the logical way to do that was to define the core components (people and rooms) in a table and building plan, then have another table to show which people were in which rooms at what times doing what. I could then use these documents to talk through the analysis products with their intended audiences.

Anyone else who picked up the room plan or tables and didn’t understand them could go whistle: they should not have been reading the documents anyway and so can hardly complain they don’t understand them. Not every analysis document is for everyone as every analysis document should be tailored for purpose and intended audience.

People

Name	Initials	Role
Lord Todd	LT	Rock God, Lord of the Manor and employer
Arthur Court	AC	Butler to Lord Todd
Brian Bates	BB	Gate and grounds guard
Connor Chambers	CC	Gate and grounds guard
Danny D’Eath	DD	Bodyguard for Lord Todd
Erica Echoes	EE	Housekeeper
Frank Flowers	FF	General handyman and gardner
Gareth Garfield	GG	Cook

Locations

 

Who was doing what, where and when between 31/12 18:00 and 01/01 09:00

Who was doing what, where and when between 31/12 18:00 and 01/01 09:00

All times approximate to nearest quarter hour except where indicated by exact times.

All parties had an evening meal, but for some it was before 18:00.

Initials	Location	From	To	Doing what
LT	Dining Room	18:00	19:00	Having evening meal
LT	Reception Room	19:00	23:15	Watching TV, some admin work and reading
LT	Lord Todd’s bedroom	23:15	00:59	Getting ready for bed, reading in bed. Hears scream from upstairs, rushes to investigate.
LT	AC bedroom	01:01	01:35	Investigating attack on AC, waiting for police
LT	Reception Room	01:40	03:30	Helping police with their enquiries
LT	LT Bedroom	03:35	-	Sleeping
AC	Dining room and Kitchen	18:00	19:00	Serving Lord Todd’s evening meal
AC	Kitchen	19:00	19:25	Assisting GG clear up and prepare for tomorrow’s breakfast.
AC	Staff room	19:25	22:00	Watching TV, socialising.
AC	AC bedroom	22:00	00:59	Getting ready for bed, in bed (asleep?), being attacked, screaming.
BB	Gate house and grounds	18:00	21:00	Guarding
BB	Staff room	21:00	22:30	Watching TV, socialising.
BB	BB bedroom	22:30	00:59	Getting ready for bed, sleeping. Woken when hears scream from downstairs, rushes to investigate.
BB	AC bedroom	01:02	01:35	Investigating attack on AC, waiting for police
BB	Reception Room	01:40	03:30	Helping police with their enquiries
BB	BB Bedroom	03:35	-	Sleeping
CC	Gate house and grounds	18:00	21:00	Guarding
CC	Staff room	21:00	22:30	Watching TV, socialising.
CC	CC bedroom	22:30	00:59	Getting ready for bed, sleeping. Woken when hears scream from downstairs, rushes to investigate.
CC	AC bedroom	01:02	01:35	Investigating attack on AC, waiting for police
CC	Reception Room	01:40	03:30	Helping police with their enquiries
CC	CC Bedroom	03:35	-	Sleeping
DD	Dining room	18:00	19:00	Tasting LT’s evening meal, protecting LT.
DD	Reception room	19:00	23:15	Protecting LT.
DD	LT’s bedroom	23:15	23:20	Inspection of LT’s bedroom
DD	DD bedroom	23:20	00:59	Getting ready for bed, sleeping, Woken when hears scream from across corridor, rushes to investigate.
DD	AC bedroom	01:01	01:35	Investigating attack on AC, waiting for police
DD	Reception Room	01:40	03:30	Helping police with their enquiries
DD	DD Bedroom	03:35	-	Sleeping
EE	Staff room	18:00	22:00	Eating evening meal, watching TV and socialising.
EE	EE bedroom	22:00	00:59	Getting ready for bed, sleeping, Woken when hears scream from across corridor, rushes to investigate.
EE	AC bedroom	01:00	01:35	Investigating attack on AC, waiting for police
EE	Reception Room	01:40	03:30	Helping police with their enquiries
EE	EE Bedroom	03:35	-	Sleeping
FF	Staff room	18:00	22:00	Eating evening meal, watching TV and socialising.
FF	FF bedroom	22:00	00:59	Getting ready for bed, sleeping, Woken when she hears scream from across the corridor, rushes to investigate.
FF	AC bedroom	01:02	01:35	Investigating attack on AC, waiting for police
FF	Reception Room	01:40	03:30	Helping police with their enquiries
FF	FF Bedroom	03:35	-	Sleeping
GG	Kitchen	18:00	19:25	Preparing LT evening meal, clearing up and preparing for breakfast.
GG	Staff room	19:25	21:30	Watching TV and socialising.
GG	GG bedroom	21:30	00:59	Getting ready for bed, sleeping, Woken when hears scream from across the corridor, rushes to investigate.
GG	AC bedroom	01:02	01:35	Investigating attack on AC, waiting for police
GG	Reception Room	01:40	03:30	Helping police with their enquiries
GG	GG Bedroom	03:35	-	Sleeping

“Well,” Ms Dixon said happily. “Case solved, don’t you think?”