I am currently reading Robert Pirsig's book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. And it's description of Scientific Method made me think that practitioners of Web Analytics really are scientist is a way that the good ones follow the scientific method closely.
The book describes 6 steps that are followed to find "truth" (some use 4 or 8 steps, but the underlying process remains the same)

1. Statement of the problem (scientific question)



2. Hypothesis of the cause of problem



3. Experiments designed to test the hypothesis



4. Predicted results of experiments



5. Observed results of experiments



6. Conclusion from the results of experiments

The key insight from using this method is that each step is critical and build on the concise execution of the previous steps. Any mistake or oversight along the way will result in a wrong conclusion. What is interesting is that I often find the first step most difficult. In order to state a problem effectively we need to be able to answer to questions I have posted before in a previous attempt to create a more formal methodology:

1. What is the current performance?



2. Is it good or bad?

Only if we answered question 2 well, we will be able to formulate an effective problems statement. That might sound easy at first, the devil is in the detail.