Most of what a dashboard shows you cannot be acted on

We work on the two or three numbers in a business that actually move a decision, and we will tell you when the honest answer is that your data cannot support the question you are asking.

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Engagements

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14000.00 USD One question, answeredSix weeks on a single question, ending in a document with the confidence interval and the queries attached. The engagement most clients... 4200.00 USD Can this be answered at allTwo weeks reading what you collect, ending in a yes or a no and, if no, what you would have to start... 9500.00 USD Two numbers to watchWe pick them with you, write down how each can be gamed and what should happen when it moves, and hand over... 2800.00 USD A second opinion on an analysisOne week trying to break somebody else’s conclusion. About half survive, which is a better rate than it sounds. 6800.00 USD Experiment designBefore you run it, not after. Sample size, duration and what result would actually change your decision — the last of which... 11000.00 USD Teaching your team to do thisFour half-days with the people who will own the numbers after we have gone. The engagement we would rather sell you.

How an engagement runs

1
The question

Written down in one sentence before anything is queried. If it cannot be written in one sentence it is not yet a question.
2
What the data can bear

Two weeks reading what you actually collect. About a quarter of engagements stop here because the data cannot answer the question, and we say so rather than producing something that looks like an answer.
3
The answer, with its error bars

How confident we are and why, in plain words. A number without an interval is an opinion with a decimal point.
4
Two numbers to watch

At the end you get two or three numbers worth watching and the query behind each, not a dashboard with forty tiles nobody opens.

What we will not build

We do not build dashboards

A dashboard is a way of deferring a decision about what matters to everybody who looks at it.

Forty tiles is not a measurement system, it is an inventory of everything that happened to be easy to plot. We will help you pick two or three numbers, tell you how they can be gamed, write down what should happen when each one moves, and hand over the queries. If you then want those on a screen, any tool will do it in an afternoon and you will not need us for it.

The practice

Who does the work

Dr Anthony Reece Principal Statistician. Writes the confidence intervals and refuses the dashboard requests.

Simone Barnett Data engineer Reads what you actually collect in week one and decides whether the question is answerable.

Kofi Anderson Analyst Does the work and teaches your team to do it afterwards, which is the point.

Petra Lyn Engagement lead Turns a paragraph into one sentence, which is most of the value in the first meeting.

What clients say

They stopped in week two and charged for two weeks rather than six.

· 4.714285714285714 out of 5 across 7 reviews

Two numbers and the queries. Our last consultants left a dashboard nobody opened.
Every figure came with a confidence interval and how it could be gamed.
They genuinely will not build you a dashboard. Do not ask twice.
Taught our analysts to do it and then left. That was the whole point.
They published an analysis they got wrong and how it was caught.
Expensive for six weeks. Cheaper than the year we spent on the wrong metric.

Read all the reviews

Before you engage us

Scope, tooling, data quality and what happens when the answer is no.

Will you build us a dashboard?

No. We will help you choose two or three numbers and hand over the queries; any tool will put those on a screen in an afternoon. A dashboard with forty tiles defers the decision about what matters to everybody who looks at it.

What if our data is a mess?

Most are. The two-week engagement exists to find out whether it is a mess that still supports your question. About a quarter of the time it does not and we tell you.

Which tools do you work in?

Whatever you already have. We write SQL against your warehouse and hand it over. We do not sell, resell or recommend a platform, which is why we can be honest about the one you are on.

What do we get at the end?

A document with the answer, how confident we are and why, plus every query used to get there. No licence, no login, nothing that stops working when you stop paying us.

Do you stay on afterwards?

No, and we will decline if you ask. The teaching engagement exists so your own team owns the numbers, which is a better outcome than a standing invoice from us.

Have you been wrong?

Yes. A seasonality effect read as a trend in 2023, written up in the method notes with how it was caught. Anybody in this field who says otherwise is either new or not checking.

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One sentence to start

Write your question in one sentence and send it

If it takes a paragraph it is several questions and we will help you split it. The first conversation is free and about a quarter of them end with us saying your data cannot support it.

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