THE SHELF

• Understanding VariationDonald J. Wheeler, 1993A short book that teaches the process behavior chart to managers, with no statistics background assumed. The source for part one.
• The Success EquationMichael J. Mauboussin, 2012How to separate skill from luck in any field, and what to do differently depending on which one dominates.
• The Halo EffectPhil Rosenzweig, 2007Why most business bestsellers are built on outcomes dressed as causes. Read it before your next case study.
• Thinking, Fast and SlowDaniel Kahneman, 2011The chapters on regression to the mean and the outside view are the best short treatment of both.
• How Big Things Get DoneBent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner, 2023Reference-class forecasting from the person who built it into a method, with the evidence from thousands of projects.
• QuitAnnie Duke, 2022On deciding in advance when to walk away, and why it’s so hard to do once you’re in.
• Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths and Total NonsenseJeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton, 2006The case for deciding from the best evidence about what works, the way medicine learned to, instead of from management fads and half-truths.

And the research: Galton (1886) on regression; Kahneman and Lovallo (1993) on the inside and outside view; Mitchell, Russo and Pennington (1989) and Veinott, Klein and Wiggins (2010) on premortems; Denrell (2003) on survivors; Golder and Tellis (1993) on pioneers; Barber and Odean (2000, 2001) on overtrading. Full references are in Appendix C.