Evidence-Based Management – Détails, épisodes et analyse

This episode accompanies the last module of the course – module 15, which is all about building an evidence-based management capacity in organisations. 

There are 3 levels – you as an evidence-based manager; your colleagues who you can influence and guide in evidence based approaches; and the skills, practices and processes in your organisation.

We hear from several experts about ways to build on what you’ve learned, and how others have approached the development of evidence-based practices in their organisations, including the CIPD, the professional HR body, about how it promotes this practice among its membership.

And you’re never alone, there are always others forging a path in evidence-based management who you can reach out to, learn from and share with.

Host: Karen Plum

 Guests:

• Eric Barends, Managing Director, Center for Evidence-Based Management 
• Denise Rousseau, H J Heinz University Professor, Carnegie Mellon University
• Jonny Gifford, Senior Researcher, CIPD, the professional body for HR and people development with a worldwide community of 160k members
• David Creelman, CEO of Creelman Research and an expert of HR strategy, analytics and learning
• Stefanie Nickel, Global Head of Diversity & Inclusion, pharmaceutical manufacturer Sandoz, part of the Novartis Group
• Steven ten Have, Partner TEN HAVE Change Management & Professor of Strategy and Change at VU University Amsterdam

Find out more about the course here:   https://cebma.org/resources-and-tools/course-modules/ 

This episode accompanies Module 14 of the course, which is about evaluating the outcome of the decision we’ve taken or the solution we implemented. This is the last stage of our evidence-based management process and is vital to ensuring that we learn from what we’ve done.

Assessing outcomes is vital, because otherwise, how do we know if what we did was effective, and how can we learn and develop our approach to decision making?  Did we capture a baseline before the decision was implemented? And was the decision implemented as planned? If we assess outcomes without these two, then conclusions could be very suspect.

We continue our case study of the large trial at pharmaceutical organization Sandoz (part of Novartis Group), and find out how the D&I interventions were assessed.

Denise Rousseau's 2020 paper: Making Evidence based organisational decisions in an uncertain world 

After action review paper: https://www.cebma.org/wp-content/uploads/Guide-to-the-after_action_review.pdf 

Host: Karen Plum

 Guests:

• Eric Barends, Managing Director, Center for Evidence-Based Management 
• Denise Rousseau, H J Heinz University Professor, Carnegie Mellon University
• Stefanie Nickel, Global Head of Diversity & Inclusion, pharmaceutical manufacturer Sandoz, part of the Novartis Group

Additional speaker, courtesy of CIPD: Niamh McNamara, Global Head of People & Organisation, Novartis 

Find out more about the course here:   https://cebma.org/resources-and-tools/course-modules/ 

This episode accompanies Module 5 of the course, which focuses on gathering evidence from the scientific literature (academic studies) that will help us address the question we are trying to answer. This module aligns to chapter 6 of the Evidence-Based Management book.

Modules 5, 6 and 7 all focus on the scientific literature, so when you listen to their corresponding podcast episodes, the picture will hopefully become more complete. 

In this episode we discuss the process of searching for academic studies; the difference between everyday / managerial terms and academic constructs; how to find the right terms to search for; the importance of obtaining studies from the right sources, most especially peer reviewed academic journals; the difference between journals and “magazines”; and the importance of documenting the process you followed to identify your evidence base.

This episode was updated in 2025 to reflect the use of AI tools such as Consensus and Google Scholar for searching academic databases.

We also explore how the peer review process and the meta-analysis help us get to the best available evidence.

 Host: Karen Plum

Guests:

• Eric Barends, Managing Director, Center for Evidence-Based Management 
• Denise Rousseau, H J Heinz University Professor, Carnegie Mellon University
• Barbara Janssen, Fellow of the Center for Evidence-Based Management

Find out more about the course here:   https://cebma.org/resources-and-tools/course-modules/ 

This episode accompanies Module 4 of the course, which is all about assessing the quality and reliability of the evidence from practitioners – people who have experience with the problem we are tackling, or the solutions we are considering. 

Modules 4 and 3 are difficult to separate fully, so please refer to episode 3 of the podcast for the rest of the discussion about practitioners. In this episode we discuss the impact of the most important biases and talk about how to be alert to our own biases and those of others. 

We consider the role of the evidence based practitioner and the challenges of getting a clear understanding of problems and solutions from practitioners who may not always be as clear or succinct as we might wish. This is where careful listening and questioning are absolutely critical, together with challenging assumptions - both our own and other people's. 

Finally we discuss the 3 criteria used to assess the reliability and trustworthiness of practitioners and experts, including consultants that seek to identify themselves as experts with particular problems and solutions. 

Host: Karen Plum

Guests

• Eric Barends, Managing Director, Center for Evidence-Based Management 
• Rob Briner, Professor of Organizational Psychology, Queen Mary University of London
• Dr Christina Rader, Associate Professor with Tenure, Department of Economics and Business at Colorado College 

Find out more about the course here:   https://cebma.org/resources-and-tools/course-modules/

This episode accompanies Module 3 of the course, which is all about acquiring evidence from practitioners – people who have experience with the problem we are tackling, or the solutions we are considering. 

Modules 3 and 4 are somewhat intertwined, so the rest of the discussion about practitioner evidence will be in Episode 4. In this episode we consider the choice of practitioners (people with expertise, not just opinions) and how we gather information from them. Asking questions (the focus of Module/episode 2 is critical here, and emphasis is again put on not jumping to solutions, even though it’s so tempting!

There is also discussion about the use of questionnaires – including some guidance about where to start (at the end) and how to get the best results - keeping the questions simple, testing understanding of the questions before launch and ensuring you know exactly how you’re going to use the data. 

Host: Karen Plum

Guests

• Eric Barends, Managing Director, Center for Evidence Based Management 
• Denise Rousseau, H J Heinz University Professor, Carnegie Mellon University 
• Dr Christina Rader, Associate Professor with Tenure, Department of Economics and Business at Colorado College 
• Dr Lisa J Griffiths, CEO, OzChild National Support Office

Find out more about the course here:   https://cebma.org/resources-and-tools/course-modules/

This episode accompanies Module 2 of the course, which is all about asking questions – critical questions to understand what the problem is that we are trying to solve. This is because so often in organisations we leap to solutions without being clear what the problem is.

This approach can be driven by a desire to do “stuff”, to get things done and to feel that we are making progress. But how many times is a solution delivered and it doesn’t seem to do the trick? Maybe that’s because not enough time was taken to understand the nature of the problem before jumping to solutions.

So we need to ask questions – lots of them. Asking them in the right way, of the right people, at the right time is vital.

By being constructive in our questioning, we can make a contribution to the decision making process even if we are not experienced, not powerful or not senior in the organisation. Sometimes the inexperienced have a better perspective because they don’t make so many assumptions and will be more easily forgiven for asking the "daft questions". 

In other words “question everything”!

Host: Karen Plum

Guests:

• Eric Barends, Managing Director, Centre for Evidence Based Management (CEBMa) 
• Denise Rousseau, H J Heinz University Professor, Carnegie Mellon University 
• Dr Lisa J Griffiths, CEO, OzChild National Support Office

Find out more about the course here:   https://cebma.org/resources-and-tools/course-modules/

This episode accompanies Module 1 of the course which covers the basic principles of evidence-based management and gives an overview of the steps involved in taking this approach. 

Everyone uses evidence when making decisions, right? But only one source, or many? And are those sources assessed for their reliability and trustworthiness? Are we actively trying to identify the biases that so often lead us down the wrong path?

There is a fundamental problem with how many decisions are currently made in organisations so the first important realisation is examine current practice and to identify the problems of this approach. And then to appreciate that many current sources of evidence (i.e. colleagues, experts, gurus and academics) might not be the best sources of reliable evidence.

And really, who has time to take an evidence-based approach, when organisations just want to get on with "stuff"

This is tricky territory which needs careful navigation as our guests discuss.


Host: Karen Plum

Guests:

• Eric Barends, Managing Director, Center for Evidence Based Management (CEBMa) 
• Denise Rousseau, H J Heinz University Professor, Carnegie Mellon University 
• Rob Briner, Professor of Organizational Psychology at Queen Mary University of London 

Find out more about the course here:   https://cebma.org/resources-and-tools/course-modules/

This episode gives a background to the course - how it was created, its founding principles, the science behind the “learning by doing” approach used by the course (which shows that it is evidence-based!), and how to get the best out of it.

The course design recognizes that students come from a variety of backgrounds and have different experience and perspectives. Some study as a preparation for a career in management, while others are already managers who want to make better decisions and critically appraise the evidence before them. Some people study with others – either as part of a college or university course, or within their organisation - while others study by themselves. 

Whether you are a lone learner, or a part of a group, there are tips and recommendations from our learning and subject experts which will hopefully help you understand how to get the best from the course. You will also learn what other students enjoy and find challenging about this method of learning.

The podcast is a companion to the course – another way to engage with the material, to deepen your learning as you progress through the modules. 

Author mentioned by Erin: Ken Koedinger

Host: Karen Plum

Guests

• Eric Barends, Managing Director, Center for Evidence-Based Management 
• Denise Rousseau, H J Heinz University Professor, Carnegie Mellon University 
• Rob Briner, Professor of Organizational Psychology, Queen Mary University of London
• Erin Czerwinski, Manager, Learning Engineering, The Simon Initiative, Carnegie Mellon University

Find out more about the course here:   https://cebma.org/resources-and-tools/course-modules/

Show notes

Welcome to the Evidence-Based Management podcast – dedicated to those studying evidence based practice in the field of management.

This episode introduces the regular podcast contributors – those that have been writing, teaching, practicing and promoting evidence based management for the last 20 years. They are all authors of the online course and the book that accompanies it.

We hear about how they became interested in this practice, why they are passionate about it, and where we are today, some 20 years after the movement started.

 
If you are interested in the organisation ScienceForWork, mentioned by Rob Briner, you can find out more here:   https://scienceforwork.com/ 

 Host: Karen Plum

Guests:

• Eric Barends, Managing Director, Center for Evidence-Based Management 
• Denise Rousseau, H J Heinz University Professor, Carnegie Mellon University 
• Rob Briner, Professor of Organizational Psychology, Queen Mary University of London

Find out more about the course here:   https://cebma.org/resources-and-tools/course-modules/

This episode accompanies Module 13 of the course, which is about incorporating evidence into the decision making process.

Is the evidence appropriate for our situation (is it generalizable). Can we (and should we) action  the evidence? And what are the practical aspects associated with using the evidence that we’ve gathered? The real world is messy and complex, so there are many things to take into consideration.

We share real world examples  from professional HR body CIPD, Creelman Research and a large trial at pharmaceutical organization Sandoz (part of Novartis Group), which shows not only the power of capturing stakeholder experiences, but the value of keeping interventions simple and practical.  

Host: Karen Plum

 Guests:

• Eric Barends, Managing Director, Center for Evidence-Based Management 
• Denise Rousseau, H J Heinz University Professor, Carnegie Mellon University
• Jonny Gifford, Senior Researcher, CIPD, the professional body for HR and people development with a worldwide community of 160k members
• David Creelman, CEO of Creelman Research and an expert of HR strategy, analytics and learning
• Stefanie Nickel, Global Head of Diversity & Inclusion, pharmaceutical manufacturer Sandoz, part of the Novartis Group

Find out more about the course here:   https://cebma.org/resources-and-tools/course-modules/