It seems even worse than that. During my stints in social media, there would be ‘research projects’ that were simply fishing expeditions for meaningful data. So

It seems even worse than that. During my stints in social media, there would be ‘research projects’ that were simply fishing expeditions for meaningful data. Something like: which user demographics have a correlation to behavior x. And then you’d just search and search and search and hope you found something. If you didn’t find something, then you’d be encouraged by a team level manager to adjust or tweak some approach to take advantage of volatility to force the correlation. Maybe you shift the sample start date, maybe you skip a normalization dimension. The directors would ask about things like normalization and if things were measured over a ncertain time period, but if you had some excuse or answer prepared, it was enough to get a nod and some recognition for your presentation. Heck, sometimes your team manager would do the presentation on your behalf to lay claim to some of that precious impact. Then, after the new review cycle starts, priorities change and you never have to follow up on the holes in your data. Or, you can even admit it has holes, you already got credit.