Who doesn’t love some alliteration to explain a concept. Certainly not us. This article from MG Rush boils down that well used phrase “evidence based decision making” to six steps, all beginning with A.

They are:

• Asking: translating a practical issue or problem into an answerable question
• Acquiring: systematically searching for and retrieving the evidence
• Appraising: critically judging the trustworthiness and relevance of the evidence
• Aggregating: weighing and pulling together the evidence
• Applying: incorporating the evidence into the decision-making process
• Assessing: evaluating the outcome of the decision taken

The article draws some interesting conclusions on the topic, and can be found here