[roenxi]

In my experience it is generally worse than that. If a program has a retention rate of, say, 30% then it isn't like that is going to come as a surprise. Data generally reveals things that are very obvious. It is easier to read a situation by talking to a few people and asking simple questions. Which raises further questions about why a data-driven approach is needed.

The value in data driven approaches is high, but it takes a rare person to figure out why. Traditionally data has actually been a communication tool for things that are already known. That isn't at all how people expect it to be used, everyone seems to anticipate it is used to make decisions.

An organisation resisting data is bad news because it will struggle to talk about things that everyone knows to be true.