isaac newton presentation

Got any suggestions?

We want to hear from you! Send us a message and help improve Slidesgo

Top searches

Trending searches

11 templates

9 templates

art portfolio

79 templates

holy spirit

36 templates

32 templates

human anatomy

18 templates

Isaac Newton

Isaac newton presentation, premium google slides theme, powerpoint template, and canva presentation template.

Download the "Isaac Newton" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides and start impressing your audience with a creative and original design. Slidesgo templates like this one here offer the possibility to convey a concept, idea or topic in a clear, concise and visual way, by using different graphic resources. You need to talk about a specific topic, but you don't know how to do it? Try using presentations like this one here, 100% customizable!

Features of this template

• 100% editable and easy to modify
• Different slides to impress your audience
• Contains easy-to-edit graphics such as graphs, maps, tables, timelines and mockups
• Includes 500+ icons and Flaticon’s extension for customizing your slides
• Designed to be used in Google Slides, Canva, and Microsoft PowerPoint
• Includes information about fonts, colors, and credits of the resources used

What are the benefits of having a Premium account?

What Premium plans do you have?

What can I do to have unlimited downloads?

Don’t want to attribute Slidesgo?

Gain access to over 24100 templates & presentations with premium from 1.67€/month.

Are you already Premium? Log in

Related posts on our blog

How to Add, Duplicate, Move, Delete or Hide Slides in Google Slides

How to Change Layouts in PowerPoint

How to Change the Slide Size in Google Slides

Related presentations.

Premium template

Unlock this template and gain unlimited access

Register for free and start editing online

• History Classics
• Your Profile
• Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window)
• This Day In History
• History Podcasts
• History Vault

Isaac Newton

By: History.com Editors

Updated: October 16, 2023 | Original: March 10, 2015

Isaac Newton is best know for his theory about the law of gravity, but his “Principia Mathematica” (1686) with its three laws of motion greatly influenced the Enlightenment in Europe. Born in 1643 in Woolsthorpe, England, Sir Isaac Newton began developing his theories on light, calculus and celestial mechanics while on break from Cambridge University. 

Years of research culminated with the 1687 publication of “Principia,” a landmark work that established the universal laws of motion and gravity. Newton’s second major book, “Opticks,” detailed his experiments to determine the properties of light. Also a student of Biblical history and alchemy, the famed scientist served as president of the Royal Society of London and master of England’s Royal Mint until his death in 1727.

Isaac Newton: Early Life and Education

Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643, in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, England. The son of a farmer who died three months before he was born, Newton spent most of his early years with his maternal grandmother after his mother remarried. His education was interrupted by a failed attempt to turn him into a farmer, and he attended the King’s School in Grantham before enrolling at the University of Cambridge’s Trinity College in 1661.

Newton studied a classical curriculum at Cambridge, but he became fascinated by the works of modern philosophers such as René Descartes, even devoting a set of notes to his outside readings he titled “Quaestiones Quaedam Philosophicae” (“Certain Philosophical Questions”). When the Great Plague shuttered Cambridge in 1665, Newton returned home and began formulating his theories on calculus, light and color, his farm the setting for the supposed falling apple that inspired his work on gravity.

Isaac Newton’s Telescope and Studies on Light

Newton returned to Cambridge in 1667 and was elected a minor fellow. He constructed the first reflecting telescope in 1668, and the following year he received his Master of Arts degree and took over as Cambridge’s Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. Asked to give a demonstration of his telescope to the Royal Society of London in 1671, he was elected to the Royal Society the following year and published his notes on optics for his peers.

Through his experiments with refraction, Newton determined that white light was a composite of all the colors on the spectrum, and he asserted that light was composed of particles instead of waves. His methods drew sharp rebuke from established Society member Robert Hooke, who was unsparing again with Newton’s follow-up paper in 1675. 

Known for his temperamental defense of his work, Newton engaged in heated correspondence with Hooke before suffering a nervous breakdown and withdrawing from the public eye in 1678. In the following years, he returned to his earlier studies on the forces governing gravity and dabbled in alchemy.

Isaac Newton and the Law of Gravity

In 1684, English astronomer Edmund Halley paid a visit to the secluded Newton. Upon learning that Newton had mathematically worked out the elliptical paths of celestial bodies, Halley urged him to organize his notes. 

The result was the 1687 publication of “Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica” (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), which established the three laws of motion and the law of universal gravity. Newton’s three laws of motion state that (1) Every object in a state of uniform motion will remain in that state of motion unless an external force acts on it; (2) Force equals mass times acceleration: F=MA and (3) For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

“Principia” propelled Newton to stardom in intellectual circles, eventually earning universal acclaim as one of the most important works of modern science. His work was a foundational part of the European Enlightenment .

With his newfound influence, Newton opposed the attempts of King James II to reinstitute Catholic teachings at English Universities. King James II was replaced by his protestant daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange as part of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and Newton was elected to represent Cambridge in Parliament in 1689. 

Newton moved to London permanently after being named warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, earning a promotion to master of the Mint three years later. Determined to prove his position wasn’t merely symbolic, Newton moved the pound sterling from the silver to the gold standard and sought to punish counterfeiters.

The death of Hooke in 1703 allowed Newton to take over as president of the Royal Society, and the following year he published his second major work, “Opticks.” Composed largely from his earlier notes on the subject, the book detailed Newton’s painstaking experiments with refraction and the color spectrum, closing with his ruminations on such matters as energy and electricity. In 1705, he was knighted by Queen Anne of England.

Isaac Newton: Founder of Calculus?

Around this time, the debate over Newton’s claims to originating the field of calculus exploded into a nasty dispute. Newton had developed his concept of “fluxions” (differentials) in the mid 1660s to account for celestial orbits, though there was no public record of his work. 

In the meantime, German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz formulated his own mathematical theories and published them in 1684. As president of the Royal Society, Newton oversaw an investigation that ruled his work to be the founding basis of the field, but the debate continued even after Leibniz’s death in 1716. Researchers later concluded that both men likely arrived at their conclusions independent of one another.

Death of Isaac Newton

Newton was also an ardent student of history and religious doctrines, and his writings on those subjects were compiled into multiple books that were published posthumously. Having never married, Newton spent his later years living with his niece at Cranbury Park near Winchester, England. He died in his sleep on March 31, 1727, and was buried in Westminster Abbey .

A giant even among the brilliant minds that drove the Scientific Revolution, Newton is remembered as a transformative scholar, inventor and writer. He eradicated any doubts about the heliocentric model of the universe by establishing celestial mechanics, his precise methodology giving birth to what is known as the scientific method. Although his theories of space-time and gravity eventually gave way to those of Albert Einstein , his work remains the bedrock on which modern physics was built.

Isaac Newton Quotes

• “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”
• “I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies but not the madness of people.”
• “What we know is a drop, what we don't know is an ocean.”
• “Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who sets the planets in motion.”
• “No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess.”

HISTORY Vault: Sir Isaac Newton: Gravity of Genius

Explore the life of Sir Isaac Newton, who laid the foundations for calculus and defined the laws of gravity.

Sign up for Inside History

Get HISTORY’s most fascinating stories delivered to your inbox three times a week.

By submitting your information, you agree to receive emails from HISTORY and A+E Networks. You can opt out at any time. You must be 16 years or older and a resident of the United States.

More details : Privacy Notice | Terms of Use | Contact Us

Isaac Newton: Who He Was, Why Apples Are Falling

Sir Isaac Newton was born especially tiny but grew into a massive intellect and still looms large, thanks to his findings on gravity, light, motion, mathematics, and more.

Mathematics, Physics

Isaac Newton Kneller Painting

Far more than just discovering the laws of gravity, Sir Isaac Newton was also responsible for working out many of the principles of visible light and the laws of motion, and contributing to calculus.

Photograph of Sir Godfrey Kneller painting by Science Source

Legend has it that Isaac Newton formulated gravitational theory in 1665 or 1666 after watching an apple fall and asking why the apple fell straight down, rather than sideways or even upward. "He showed that the force that makes the apple fall and that holds us on the ground is the same as the force that keeps the moon and planets in their orbits," said Martin Rees, a former president of Britain's Royal Society, the United Kingdom's national academy of science, which was once headed by Newton himself. "His theory of gravity wouldn't have got us global positioning satellites," said Jeremy Gray, a mathematical historian at the Milton Keynes, U.K.-based Open University. "But it was enough to develop space travel." Isaac Newton, Underachiever? Born two to three months prematurely on January 4, 1643, in a hamlet in Lincolnshire, England, Isaac Newton was a tiny baby who, according to his mother, could have fit inside a quart mug. A practical child, he enjoyed constructing models, including a tiny mill that actually ground flour—powered by a mouse running in a wheel. Admitted to the University of Cambridge on 1661, Newton at first failed to shine as a student. In 1665 the school temporarily closed because of a bubonic plague epidemic and Newton returned home to Lincolnshire for two years. It was then that the apple-falling brainstorm occurred, and he described his years on hiatus as "the prime of my age for invention." Despite his apparent affinity for private study, Newton returned to Cambridge in 1667 and served as a mathematics professor and in other capacities until 1696. Isaac Newton: More than Master of Gravity Decoding gravity was only part of Newton's contribution to mathematics and science. His other major mathematical preoccupation was calculus, and along with German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz, Newton developed differentiation and integration —techniques that remain fundamental to mathematicians and scientists. Meanwhile, his interest in optics led him to propose, correctly, that white light is actually the combination of light of all the colors of the rainbow. This, in turn, made plain the cause of chromatic aberration—inaccurate color reproduction—in the telescopes of the day. To solve the problem, Newton designed a telescope that used mirrors rather than just glass lenses, which allowed the new apparatus to focus all the colors on a single point—resulting in a crisper, more accurate image. To this day, reflecting telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope, are mainstays of astronomy. Following his apple insight, Newton developed the three laws of motion, which are, in his own words:

• Newton's Law of Inertia : Every object persists in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it.
• Newton's Law of Acceleration : Force is equal to the change in momentum (mV) per change in time. For a constant mass, force equals mass times acceleration [expressed in the famous equation F = ma].
• Newton's Law of Action and Reaction: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Newton published his findings in 1687 in a book called Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) commonly known as the Principia . "Newton's Principia made him famous—few people read it, and even fewer understood it, but everyone knew that it was a great work, rather like Einstein's Theory of Relativity over two hundred years later," writes mathematician Robert Wilson of the Open University in an article on a university website . Isaac Newton's "Unattractive Personality" Despite his wealth of discoveries, Isaac Newton wasn't well liked, particularly in old age, when he served as the head of Britain's Royal Mint, served in Parliament, and wrote on religion, among other things. "As a personality, Newton was unattractive—solitary and reclusive when young, vain and vindictive in his later years, when he tyrannized the Royal Society and vigorously sabotaged his rivals," the Royal Society's Rees said. Sir David Wallace, director of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Cambridge, U.K., added, "He was a complex character, who also pursued alchemy"—the search for a method to turn base metals into gold—"and, as Master of the Mint, showed no clemency towards coiners [counterfeiters] sentenced to death." In 1727, at 84, Sir Isaac Newton died in his sleep and was buried with pomp and ceremony in Westminster Abbey in London.

Media Credits

The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited.

Last Updated

May 9, 2024

User Permissions

For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. They will best know the preferred format. When you reach out to them, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource.

If a media asset is downloadable, a download button appears in the corner of the media viewer. If no button appears, you cannot download or save the media.

Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service .

Interactives

Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. You cannot download interactives.

Related Resources

Indiana University Bloomington Indiana University Bloomington IU Bloomington

Vitriol and niter

Sal ammoniac, silver / moon, iron / mars, copper / venus, tin / jupiter, lead / saturn, antimony and regulus, other substances, apparatus / processes, measures and weights, paleography, editorial marks.

Isaac Newton, like Albert Einstein, is a quintessential symbol of the human intellect and its ability to decode the secrets of nature. Newton's fundamental contributions to science include the quantification of gravitational attraction, the discovery that white light is actually a mixture of immutable spectral colors, and the formulation of the calculus. Yet there is another, more mysterious side to Newton that is imperfectly known, a realm of activity that spanned some thirty years of his life, although he kept it largely hidden from his contemporaries and colleagues. We refer to Newton's involvement in the discipline of alchemy, or as it was often called in seventeenth-century England, "chymistry." Newton wrote and transcribed about a million words on the subject of alchemy. Newton's alchemical manuscripts include a rich and diverse set of document types, including laboratory notebooks, indices of alchemical substances, and Newton's transcriptions from other sources.

Newton & Alchemy

It is important to see how chemical technology and medicine were connected to Newton's involvement to the "Great Work," just as it is important to see how his chymistry was related to his other intellectual and technical pursuits. Newton & Alchemy

Latent Semantic Analysis

Computational tools to aid analysis of the language and projects encompassed in Newton's alchemical manuscripts. Latent Semantic Analysis

Featured Presentation

William R. Newman presented a lecture titled Why did Isaac Newton Believe in Alchemy? at the The Perimeter Institute on October 2, 2010. Project Presentations

Alchemy and Optics

Experiments in Mineral Acids

Newton describes the production of the spirit of salt (hydrochloric acid) in Don b. 15, p.8v , as follows: "Spirit of Salt. Common salt, beat fine in 1 part brick-dust or potters earth not over dryed & pouder 5 parts : urge by a graduall fire out of a glass retort filld full into a large receiver till you feel the receiver cold & one pound will yeild nine or 10 ounces."

Multimedia Lab

In Newton's day, a silica garden was usually made by placing lumps of ferric chloride in a solution of potassium silicate. Silica gardens encouraged the idea that minerals were vegetative. See videos demonstrating this process and five other reactions that shaped the thinking of early modern chymists on our Multimedia Lab page.

Home Collections Education Scientist Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton PowerPoint And Google Slides Templates

Isaac Newton Presentation Slides

Scientist Sir Isaac Newton, a towering figure in the annals of science, left an indelible mark on human understanding with his groundbreaking work. Best known for his monumental work "Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica," or the Principia, Newton's contributions spanned physics, mathematics, and astronomy. His biography tells the story of an insatiably curious mind whose relentless pursuit of knowledge reshaped these fields. Our Sir Isaac Newton PowerPoint provides a dynamic platform for presenting Newton's life, work, and enduring impact. Ideal for educators, researchers, students, and history enthusiasts, it simplifies complex scientific concepts through engaging visuals and design. Customizable slides ensure seamless integration into presentations, saving time and effort. Embrace this template to inspire a deeper appreciation for Scientist Sir Isaac Newton's legacy and the wonders of science.

Features of the templates:

• 100% customizable slides and easy to download.
• Slides are available in different nodes & colors.
• The slide contains 16:9 and 4:3 formats.
• Easy to change the colors of the slide quickly.
• Highly compatible with PowerPoint and Google Slides.
• Well-crafted template with an instant download facility.
• Biography Of Isaac Newton
• The Autobiography Of Isaac Newton
• Isaac Newton
• All About Sir Isaac Newton
• Isaac Newton Gravity
• Isaac Newton Creation
• Newton's Apple Theory
• Google Slides

43+ Templates

177+ Templates

1297+ Templates

178+ Templates

Animals and birds

269+ Templates

Country Flags

46+ Templates

415+ Templates

179+ Templates

Galaxy or Space

124+ Templates

30+ Templates

You May Also Like These PowerPoint Templates

Special Presentations

Academic Articles

• John A. Walsh and Wallace Edd Hooper, "The Liberty of Invention: Alchemical Discourse and Information Technology Standardization," Literary and Linguistic Computing 27 (2012), 55–79.
• William R. Newman, "Newton's Early Optical Theory and its Debt to Chymistry," in Lumière et vision dans les sciences et dans les arts. De l'Antiquité au XVIIe siècle , ed. Danielle Jacquart and Michel Hochmann (Geneva: Droz, 2010), 283–307.
• William R. Newman, "Geochemical Concepts in Isaac Newton's Early Alchemy," in The Revolution in Geology from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment , ed. Gary D. Rosenberg (Boulder: Geological Society of America, 2009), 41–49.
• William R. Newman, "Newton's Theory of Metallic Generation in the Previously Neglected Text 'Humores minerales continuo decidunt'," in Chymists and Chymistry: Studies in the History of Alchemy and Early Modern Chemistry , ed. Lawrence M. Principe (Sagamore Beach, MA: Chemical Heritage Foundation and Science History Publications, 2007), 89–100.
• Cesare Pastorino, Tamara Lopez and John A. Walsh, "The Digital Index Chemicus: toward a digital tool for studying Isaac Newton's Index Chemicus," Body, Space & Technology Journal 7.20 (2008) < http://people.brunel.ac.uk/bst/vol0702/cesarepastorino/ >.

Presentations and Lectures

• William R. Newman, "Unsolved Mysteries of Newton's Alchemy," "A great variety of admirable discoverys": Newton's Principia in the Age of Enlightenment, The Royal Society, London, UK, December 11–13, 2013.
• William R. Newman, "Newton's Reputation as an Alchemist and the Tradition of Chymiatria," The Reception of Newton: International Conference at the Edward Worth Library, Dublin, July 12–13, 2012.
• William R. Newman, "Isaac Newton and Chymical Medicine," Alchemy and Medicine from Antiquity to the Enlightenment, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK, September 22–24, 2011.
• John A. Walsh and Wallace Edd Hooper, "Computational Discovery and Visualization of Semantic Structures in Historical and Literary Corpora: The Chymistry of Isaac Newton & The Algernon Charles Swinburne Project" (poster), Digital Humanities 2011, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, June 19–22, 2011 < http://www.slis.indiana.edu/faculty/jawalsh/posters/computational_discovery_and_vis.pdf >.
• William R. Newman, "The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Project as an Example of Work in Digital Humanities" (with Wally Hooper), Digital HPS Workshop, Caltech, Pasadena, CA, April 14–17, 2011.
• William R. Newman, "Chymistry in Isaac Newton's Early Theory of Light and Color," (invited lecture), McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, April 6, 2010.
• William R. Newman, "Chemistry and Optics, " Newton:Milton, Two Cultures?, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK, July 20–24, 2009
• Wallace Edd Hooper and Timothy D. Bowman, "Isaac Newton's alchemical symbols," Digital Library Brownbag Series, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, March 25, 2009.
• Stacy T. Kowalczyk, John A. Walsh, Timothy D. Bowman and Jon. W. Dunn, "Digital humanities annotation," Institute for Digital Arts and Humanities Brownbag Series, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, February 5, 2009.
• William R. Newman, "Art and Nature in the Alchemical Work of Isaac Newton," (invited lecture), University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2009.
• William R. Newman, "Newton's Chymistry," (invited lecture), University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 2009.
• John A. Walsh and Tamara Lopez, "The 'Chymistry' of Isaac Newton," Digital Library Brownbag Series, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, February 8, 2006.
• John A. Walsh, "The Chymistry of Isaac Newton: New Technologies and Old Science" (poster), Digital Resources for the Humanities (DRH), Lancaster University, Lancaster, England, UK, September 4–7, 2005.
• William R. Newman et. al., "The Chymistry of Isaac Newton" (invited talk), Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) Scholarly Communication Institute, University of Virginia, Charlotesville, VA, July 17–19, 2005.
• John A. Walsh "The Chymistry of Isaac Newton: New Technologies and Old Science" (poster), Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Science and Technology Section (STS), American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference, McCormick Place Convention Center, Chicago, IL, June 23–25, 2005.
• William R. Newman, "Alchemy and Optics in the work of Isaac Newton" (invited lecture), Lumière et vision dans les sciences et dans les arts. De l'Antiquité au XVIIe siècle, Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art, Paris, June 9–11, 2005.
• William R. Newman, "Theology in the Laboratory? New Light on Isaac Newton's Alchemy" (invited lecture), History and Philosophy of Science and Technology Colloquium Series, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, May 5, 2004.
• William R. Newman, "Newton's Alchemy, The Tabula Smaragdina, and the Aerial Niter" (invited lecture), The Magic of Things. A workshop held at Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, April 11–12, 2003.

A business journal from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

Four Pillars of Decision-driven Analytics

May 14, 2024 • 5 min read.

In an excerpt from their new book, Wharton’s Stefano Puntoni and co-author Bart De Langhe argue that the power of data can only be realized by leveraging human intelligence.

In a new book titled Decision-Driven Analytics: Leveraging Human Intelligence to Unlock the Power of Data , professors and behavioral scientists Bart De Langhe and Stefano Puntoni challenge the idea that our decisions should be driven by data. Rather, they argue that the power of data can only be realized by putting data in the background.

In this excerpt from their book, De Langhe and Puntoni draw from their own research and teaching to offer four pillars of decision-driven analytics.

In the mid-1850s, astronomers figured that the orbit of the planet Uranus was not like it should be according to the laws of physics. A French astronomer, Alexis Bouvard, thought that perhaps that was because we didn’t know about a planet further out in the solar system that exerted an influence on Uranus’s orbit. People started searching the sky for it. Soon enough, Urbain Le Verrier, another Frenchman, found the missing planet. It was named Neptune.

This was a great victory for the power of observation. Investing in data collection saved the day. It taught astronomers that the key to unraveling the mysteries of the cosmos was more and better data.

The rationale for making decisions with input from analytics rests on similar principles. Without data we navigate blind, while with data we can make decisions rooted in evidence. The implication is that good thinking means thinking with data.

The story doesn’t end here, though. An anomaly was soon observed also in the orbit of another planet: Mercury. The same Urbain Le Verrier who had found Neptune now hypothesized the existence of a missing planet lying between Mercury and the Sun. He called this missing planet Vulcan. Again, people started looking for it, only this time nobody could find it. Astronomers kept looking for Vulcan in the subsequent decades but the missing planet remained missing, and the mystery of Mercury unsolved.

The anomaly in the orbit of Mercury could be explained only half a century later. The explanation had to wait for Albert Einstein’s publication of a new theory of gravitation, called the theory of general relativity. This theory revolutionized our understanding of the universe by placing space and time in a four-dimensional continuum.

Although nobody knew that before Einstein entered the scene, all planetary orbits were in fact not conforming to Isaac Newton’s laws. Nobody knew that because the difference between the predictions of the two theories are smaller and smaller as you move away from the Sun. Only in the case of Mercury, which is the planet closest to the Sun, the curvature in space-time caused by the mass of the Sun was large enough for the divergence between the predictions based on Newton’s and Einstein’s theories to be detected by the telescopes of the time.

The mystery of Mercury was solved in a very different way from the mystery of Uranus. While the latter could be solved with better observations, the former could only be solved with better theory, by thinking without data.

Managers are like astronomers, looking to solve problems and find solutions in a complex world, where data is abundant but often hard to make sense of. The message is clear: Data and algorithms are crucial to making good decisions. But human judgment and intelligence are crucial, too.

The Four Pillars of Decision-driven Analytics

Many companies are witnessing an expanding gap between data and decisions, even with the goal of being a “data-driven organization.” The increasing complexity of data and algorithms can make it harder for decision-makers to collaborate with data analysts. For a business to thrive, it’s essential for both groups to understand and value each other’s expertise.

Many businesses find themselves overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data at their disposal. Putting decisions firmly at the center of the analytics process can be transformative. Starting with decisions and working back to the data will improve the quality of decision-making, improve the collaboration between managers and data analysts, and ultimately foster an organizational culture that is action oriented and that prizes the quality of decisions over ego or politics.

Here are the four core principles of decision-driven analytics:

• Decisions. Identify controllable, relevant decision alternatives. Consider diverse perspectives and a wide array of solutions. Prioritize feasible and impactful alternatives to achieve important business outcomes.
• Questions. Formulate precise questions that will help rank the identified decision alternatives. Ambiguous questions can lead to miscommunication and poor decisions.
• Data. Evaluate the data-generating mechanism. While Big Data can be tempting, the emphasis should be on collecting relevant data.
• Answers. When the earlier steps are done right, determining the best action becomes straightforward. Remember, acknowledging uncertainty and sidestepping overconfidence are key for informed decisions.

Decision-driven analytics is about making informed choices, not just processing data or flooding presentations with graphs. It emphasizes gleaning actionable insights from pertinent data. Embracing this approach means letting go of the notion that every data point is vital and not being distracted by the newest tools.

Data is just a means to an end. What matters is the decisions we make.

Excerpted and adapted from Decision-Driven Analytics: Leveraging Human Intelligence to Unlock the Power of Data, by Bart De Langhe and Stefano Puntoni, copyright 2024. Reprinted by permission of Wharton School Press.

More From Knowledge at Wharton

NBA Motion Tracking Data

Nba playing time statistics, 2024 kentucky derby with jeff seder, looking for more insights.

Sign up to stay informed about our latest article releases.