CODED × KJO · Participant workbook
Day 3. From Analysis to Recommendation
What you leave with today
1A rule for picking the chart, that fits on five lines.
2A dashboard built from a file you had never seen, in sixty minutes.
3Proof that a stranger could read it without you in the room.
Words used today
Dashboard: the smallest set of charts that answers one decision. Not a report of everything in the file.
The Monday question: the one decision your reader has to make. Every chart earns its place by helping with it.
Cold read: somebody who was not there tells you what your dashboard says. You are not allowed to speak.
Sorted by size: largest first. Not alphabetical, which is what the tool does by default.
Page 1
Block 1: The dashboard nobody could use
On screen: four charts and four numbers. Every one of them is arithmetically correct.
The question:
Which chart tells you where to send the engineer on Monday?
Your answer:
What was wrong with it
Write what you noticed. Not what was ugly. What stopped you answering the question.
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Every number is right. Nobody can use it.
Those two facts live together comfortably, and that is the whole of today.
Where have you seen this shape before?
Page 2
Blocks 2 and 3: What a dashboard is for
A dashboard is not a report of everything in the file.
It is the smallest set of charts that answers one decision.
Reports answer what happened. Dashboards answer what do I do.
Every chart answers exactly one question. If a chart answers no question, delete it. If it answers three, split it.
The three failures
| Failure | What it looks like |
|---|---|
| The chart with no question | It is there because the field existed |
| The title that names a field | "Count of RequestID by Branch" describes the axes. It says nothing |
| The unsorted comparison | Alphabetical bars, so the worst performer sits wherever the alphabet put it |
Exercise 3.1.For each chart on the bad dashboard, write two lines.
| The chart | The question it should answer | Does it? Why |
|---|---|---|
| Count by Branch | ||
| Count by Vendor (pie) | ||
| Count by Month | ||
| Avg Satisfaction by Branch |
Which one would you keep?
Which chart is missing?
Page 3
Block 5: Which chart, and when
The decision rule
| Your claim is about | Draw |
|---|---|
| Comparing amounts across groups | Bar chart, sorted by size |
| Change over time | Line chart |
| A relationship between two numbers | Scatter plot |
| Part of a whole, four groups or fewer | Bar chart, still. Not a pie |
| One number that matters on its own | No chart. Say the number |
The chart follows the claim. You do not pick a chart and then find something to put in it.
The title is where the finding goes
| Title | What it does |
|---|---|
| "Count of RequestID by Branch" | Names the axes. The reader does the work |
| "Requests by Branch" | Shorter. Same problem |
| "Central Branch carries a quarter of all requests" | States the finding. The reader is done |
If your title could sit on top of any chart in the file without changing, it is not a title. It is a label.
Three smaller things
Start bar chart axes at zero. A truncated axis makes a two percent difference look like a crisis.
Put the row count on the dashboard. You have been writing it down for two days.
Color is for one thing at a time. If everything is highlighted, nothing is.
Where does the rule break?
Page 4
Block 6: Eight claims, eight charts
Every claim on the card is true. For each one, name the chart and write the title.
| # | Your chart | Your title |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ||
| 2 | ||
| 3 | ||
| 4 | ||
| 5 | ||
| 6 | ||
| 7 | ||
| 8 |
How many of your eight titles named a field instead of stating a finding?
The two that separate the room:
Claim 3 is the only relationship in the set. A bar chart cannot show it.
Claim 6 needs no chart at all. A bar chart with one tall bar is a picture of a sentence.
Page 5
Blocks 8 and 9: The capstone
The brief
Your reader: a branch operations manager. Has eleven minutes. Was not in this room.
The decision: where to put the next engineer.
Deliver: no more than four charts, and one sentence at the top saying what it means.
Every chart needs: a title that states a finding, a sensible sort, and a row count on the page.
Beside it: your change log. What you cleaned and why.
Clean it first. You will want to skip that and go to the charts.
Exercise 9.1.Before you build anything, run the check from yesterday.
| The question | Columns it needs | Rows with all of them | GO / STOP |
|---|---|---|---|
Exercise 9.2.Your change log.
| What you did | Rows affected | Why |
|---|---|---|
One decision you are not certain about:
Exercise 9.3.The sentence at the top of your dashboard.
Write this one even if you run out of time. It is the part that gets skipped.
Page 6
Block 11: The gallery walk
The rule: you stay silent at your own dashboard.
If you have to explain it, it did not work. Your reader will not have you.
Green note: what you think this dashboard is telling you. One sentence, your own words.
Orange note: the one thing you would change.
Exercise 11.1.Read the green notes left on your own dashboard.
What they thought it said:
What you meant it to say:
The gap between those two lines is the only part of this job the tool cannot do for you.
The orange notes you got:
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Page 7
Block 12: The fix pass
Make one change. One, not four.
The change I made:
My old title:
My new title:
Most titles got shorter and more specific. That is what happened to your prompts on Monday afternoon, and to your findings yesterday. The pattern has been the same for three days, in three different places.
Page 8
Day 3 key takeaways
Write these in your own words.
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The ladder, and what you did on each rung
| Rung | What you built |
|---|---|
| Data | Monday afternoon. Forty rows, eleven things wrong, and a change log that says why |
| Information | Tuesday morning. The tool was right four times, then dropped 14 percent without a word |
| Knowledge | Tuesday afternoon. One number, four neighbors, and a card saying which one matters |
| Wisdom | Today. A file you had never seen, and a dashboard a stranger could read |
One line held all three days
The prompt is the product.
Monday: same file, two prompts, two different dashboards.
Tuesday: three lines added to a question, and a hidden trap became visible.
Today: same charts, different titles, and one of them a stranger could read.
The work was never in the tool. It was in what you asked it for, and how precisely you asked. That does not change when the models change, and they will change.
The honest limit
Three days does not make you a data analyst.
It makes you someone who can no longer be handed a number and be quiet about it. That is worth more than it sounds.
Three things go back to work with you
What you are taking home
Those are yours, and they are evidence.