Summary

In this chapter, you got hands-on with the first of Athena's four most common usages – ad hoc analytics. We did this by looking at the history of business intelligence and learning about the OODA loop. Ad hoc analytics shortens the OODA loop by making it easier to use data to observe and orient yourself to the situation. The increased accessibility of data ultimately leads to the heightened situational awareness required for making sound decisions. With clarity of data behind your decisions, your organization will be less likely to waste time before acting on those choices. A short OODA loop also helps you react to poor decisions or calculated risks such as A/B tests.

The OODA loop isn't a new concept, and it's not the catalyst of the rising importance of ad hoc analytics. Instead, the proliferation of data has made it necessary for every decision maker in your organization to have access to critical business metrics at a moment's notice. We saw...