Confrontation have a “cost”. It might be worth it if you can make a difference. But if you are going to be ignored anyway, confrontation only would make you bitter.

On the other hand, using data to win a discussion can be quite satisfying. XD

Anyway, I understand how people with families and mortgages can refrain from saying things that they know managers and important people won’t like.

I mean, one time they ask me how to spot project that would go wrong and might produce losses. I asked that they could look how many hours people spend in meetings. Especially coders and analyst, not just project managers. Since if the ratio of time spent in meetings was too high, it meant that people weren’t working on development, they were discussing things. And that usually happened when they have to offer explanations to the customer or they haven’t been following methodology and requirements weren’t clear/changed in the middle of the project without changing scope. Predictability, that didn’t seat well, since many managers justify their wages with pointless meetings and showing that in a model would have put them in the spotlight. XD

It was worth the try, though. And since I’m not a data analyst, it only meant that I would carry on with my IT projects. But if a data analyst would have said the same, well, let's say that many times data analyst are hired to justify the same managers that waste time with pointless meeting and that those same managers are more interesting in the colors of the PPT than the content.

But don’t despair, some people value good data analyst. It is just a matter of looking for companies were people are willing to listen (yes, even to the analyst with less confidence, introverts or shy) and consider the actual data rather than how uncomfortable their findings are. XD