Senior executives in a large organization receive numerous sales reports of every sale through a corporate dashboard on a weekly basis. The executives are considering budget increases for various functions but would like to know if they are obtaining good returns for current budget allocations. They ask the analytics team to research and answer: “How effective is our marketing spend?”
This question is:
The question 'How effective is our marketing spend?' is too broadly scoped to be effectively answered. For a meaningful analysis, the question needs to be more specific. Broad questions can lead to ambiguous or generalized results that do not provide actionable insights. It would be more effective to break down the question into specific aspects of marketing spend and its impact on sales or other metrics, which can then be analyzed individually to provide a clearer understanding of effectiveness.
See CBDA guide pg 142 - 3.15 Problem Shaping and Reframing - Purpose Problem shaping and reframing are creative applications of problem analysis techniques that result in alternative formulation of the problem faced by an organization. Problem shaping specifically requires refining the problem to a state where a solution process can be applied. Problem reframing refers to re-stating the problem in a different context. This section in the guide, helps to better understand how to transform a broad and vague question like "How effective is our marketing spend?" into specific, actionable sub-questions that can be effectively addressed through data analysis.