Cassandra Effect

Cassandra was a daughter of the Trojan king Priam. She was given the gift of prophecy by Apollo, but when she cheated him, he turned this into a curse by causing her prophecies, though true, to be disbelieved.

In Data Science, analysis can produce models and outputs that show what drives an effect but that does not mean management will do anything about it, or do the right thing about it, so the prophecy happens anyway.

Analyst: The model shows that customers who have a 10GB data allowance and do not use it up tend to leave us and go to competitors who offer smaller, cheaper packages. We recommend, offering them smaller packages or carrying their data over.

Manager: I am the manager here, you don't tell me what to do, look at my awesome hair!

CEO: We keep losing the customers, the analyst's models are useless!

Analyst: damned Cassandra Effect!

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