Awesome Data-Driven Decision Making

A curated list of the best resources about data-driven decision making, behavioral strategy, and analytical thinking for business leaders.

Inspired by awesome lists. Maintained by Rework.

Data doesn't make decisions. People do. And people are predictably irrational in ways that data can either expose or reinforce, depending on how it's used. The best decision-making resources acknowledge both sides: the power of data to cut through bias, and the limits of data when the questions are fundamentally about values, strategy, or incomplete information.

Contents

Articles

Books

Videos & Talks

Tools & Software

  • Tableau - Data visualization platform for turning raw data into decision-relevant dashboards and reports.
  • Microsoft Power BI - BI and analytics platform deeply integrated with Microsoft 365 and enterprise data sources.
  • Amplitude - Product analytics platform for making product and growth decisions from behavioral data.
  • Mixpanel - Event-based analytics for understanding user behavior and validating product decisions.
  • Streamlit - Open-source tool for building data apps and decision-support tools from Python scripts.
  • Observable - Browser-based data notebook for collaborative data analysis and visualization.
  • Dovetail - Research repository and analysis tool for turning qualitative research into structured insight.
  • Causal - Financial modeling and scenario planning tool built for data-driven business decisions.

Templates & Frameworks

Case Studies & Real-World Examples

  • Google's Project Oxygen - In 2008, Google's People Analytics team set out to prove that managers didn't matter — and discovered the opposite. Using performance reviews, employee surveys, and exit interview data, they identified eight behaviors that distinguished the company's best managers from its worst. The project became a model for how data can overturn institutional assumptions and directly reshape people management practice. Source

  • Amazon's six-page memo culture - Jeff Bezos replaced PowerPoint presentations with six-page narrative memos as the primary decision-making artifact at Amazon, arguing that the discipline of writing forces clearer thinking than bullet points allow. Every senior meeting begins with silent reading of the memo, and decisions are made based on structured written arguments rather than the persuasion dynamics of presentation. This institutional practice has become one of the most studied examples of building a culture where decisions are made on the quality of reasoning, not the confidence of the presenter. Source

  • Oakland A's and Moneyball - Billy Beane's use of sabermetrics to build a competitive MLB team on a fraction of the New York Yankees' payroll in the early 2000s is the most famous demonstration that data-driven decision-making can systematically outperform expert intuition. The A's identified undervalued statistics (on-base percentage over batting average) that the market mispriced, and won 20 consecutive games in 2002 — a record at the time. Source

  • Capital One - Founded in 1994 with the explicit premise that banking could be run as an information-based business, Capital One's founders applied mass customization and statistical modeling to credit card marketing at a time when most banks used uniform pricing. Their data-driven approach to credit risk and customer acquisition helped Capital One grow from a spinout of Signet Bank to one of the top-10 U.S. banks by assets — built almost entirely on the analytical edge they maintained over traditional competitors. Source

  • Netflix's data-driven content investment - Netflix made its decision to commission "House of Cards" in 2013 based on data showing overlap between users who liked the original UK series, users who watched films starring Kevin Spacey, and users who watched films directed by David Fincher. Rather than producing a pilot and testing it, Netflix committed $100 million based on data confidence — a decision process that represented a fundamental departure from how the TV industry had always worked. Source

  • Procter & Gamble's decision cockpits - P&G built "Business Sufficiency" models and executive decision cockpits — real-time dashboards showing every senior leader the handful of metrics that determined whether the business would hit its targets. CEO A.G. Lafley's investment in making data visible and actionable at the executive level has been credited with helping P&G outperform during a period of significant consumer goods disruption. Source

Communities & Newsletters

Rework Resources

Contributing

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Last updated: March 2026. Links verified. Balances quantitative methods with behavioral strategy and the limits of data in real decisions.