[Bartweiss]

> management avoiding decision making

A solid point, but I'd also add justifying decision-making.

The stated reason for projects like this is usually to guide better decision making, which is only possible if the project succeeds. But as long as the project produces some kind of comprehensible output, it can be used as an excuse for making new decisions or changing old ones.

Dilbert used to have a lot of strips about managers using re-orgs to bury their bad decisions. From some of the horror stories I've heard lately, data science and analytics have taken over that role at many companies, helping to cover up power grabs and backtracking under the guise of "listening to the data".