Bain Insights: Understanding the "Infobesity" Epidemic

Managers can be overwhelmed by a sea of information.
This is not good for corporate decision-making health.

A recent article from the Bain 'Decision Insights' series warns us of the perils of managerial information overload, which is all too common in the contemporary workplace, thanks to the wonders of information technology and the internet. This is not to say that these developments are all bad - to the contrary, they have advanced the capacity and sophistication of corporate intelligence gathering in leaps and bounds. However, as the Bain article explains, the advent of 'big data' has made it irrepressibly tempting for managers to overindulge in information (a phenomenon playfully labelled  infobesity), with serious consequences:   

"The torrent [of information] that flows through organizations today acts like so much bad cholesterol, clogging their arteries and slowing their reactions ... human beings can only process so much data" (p. 1). 

Work tensions, stress, decision paralysis, and wasted time are the common symptoms of this corporate epidemic. The article itself provides more detailed statistical 'facts' on these impacts of infobesity. The cure - a need to properly scrutinise corporate information needs and modes of delivery to provide information only for crucial managerial decisions. Appropriately focusing, standardising, timing and testing information provided to managers are the suggestions made. However, many organisations probably find this to be easier said than done. Are managers readily able to agree on the most crucial information requirements? How much information is enough? Can they resist temptation to include that one extra data source or KPI in their reckoning? These and other pertinent questions may be difficult to resolve, but nonetheless are questions that need to be debated. 

You can read the full article here. If you have personally experienced infobesity in an organisation you've worked for, what were your issues, problems and frustrations? How did your organisation tame the 'big data' beast?

I welcome you to share your experiences in the comments section below.