Tool v report

I an slowly learning that it is far more advantageous to seek to create tools rather than reports. With a reporting state of mind, one seeks to create a static summary or visualization that most effectively addresses the question at hand. The value of this approach is that it emphasizes understanding a singular problem well, considering multiple approaches, and selecting the best one.

In contrast a tool-oriented state of mind would take a step back beyond the singular problem and seek to create a basis for addressing a broader set of questions of or area of analysis. More often than not, a tool-oriented approach yields better medium of long term results. Moreover, a well constructed tool can serve the role of a report; whereas the opposite is not possible.

In November Chandoo presenting a visualization challenge with the following objective: “You have to make one chart (or dashboards) using this data that would help a senior manager understand how the sales people have done in the 24 months.” Approaching this from a very report-oriented approach I presented the following:

(Full size pic. Also, complete workbook at: http://cid-4e546fec4f1c6d0d.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/dashboard%20submission.xlsx)

Given the question, I think it presents an extremely pertinent view of the data. Namely, it is a trellis plot visualizing how each salesman perform acorss different variables (e.g. region, product, and customer type). If the goal is simply to address the original question of understanding salesman performance, the report hits the nail on the head. However, in reality, when you present this to your manager immediately he or she will ask a half dozen more questions: how do the regions compare? which product made the greatest percentage increase? how do product sales differ by region? The salesperson report does not address these question; after all we were originally interested in sales performance. So at this point, we are largely starting from scratch in addressing these questions.

Posed with the same request now, I would look to create something more tool-like such as the following:

(Full size pic)

Here, by leveraging Excel’s powerful filtering and sorting capabilities in conjunction with small-multiples or custom-made sparklines we are in a position to answer any of the questions thrown at us in short order, perhaps even within seconds. Moreover, if a report is needed to a address a particular question it can be created on the fly as well. In this case, it is requires nothing more than creating a pdf of the relevant filtered and sorted rows.

In subsequent posts, I intend to elaborate on the distinction between report and tool and go into the details of constructing this type of tool, which takes remarkably little time to construct given its capabilities as well as present other examples that illustrate the power of this sweet filter / sorting / in-cell diagrams combo.