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Short diagnostic hints for the two Practice on your own problems in this chapter. Attempt each problem before opening the hint. Complete answers appear in Appendix G of The Defensible Decision: Practice Workbook.
Problem 1 — the support-tickets dataset
Restated: Support resolution time improved 14% since a tooling rollout in March, but the improvement is concentrated in tier-1 tickets. Write the Big Idea for a chart the analyst would show the support director in the tooling-contract renewal meeting. Then name the framing and the chart family (Chapter 4 preview).
Show a diagnostic hint
Diagnostic cue. Write one sentence that names a number and its decision implication before selecting a visual.
Complete answers appear in Appendix G of The Defensible Decision: Practice Workbook.
Problem 2 — the renewal-rate dataset
Restated: Enterprise renewal rate ticked up 3 percentage points last quarter, but total revenue from renewals fell 8%. The three largest accounts that did not renew represented 12% of the renewal-revenue base. Write the Big Idea. Then decide which framing — comparison, change, or distribution — makes the divergence between the two numbers the visible tension.
Show a diagnostic hint
Diagnostic cue. Test whether the evidence supports a distribution, comparison, or causal claim before shaping the story.
Complete answers appear in Appendix G of The Defensible Decision: Practice Workbook.
Related on this site
- Chapter 3 companion page — Lina’s clustered-column vs Big Idea walkthrough, further reading, self-check quiz, and the Big-Idea-before-the-chart activity.
- Lina’s channel-ROMI dataset — the five-channel marketing-attribution data behind the Chapter 3 companion page.
- All chapter companion pages.
- Feedback — share corrections and improvement opportunities across all chapters.
About the three-tier Practice format
Each chapter of the book closes with a three-tier Practice block adapted from Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic's course-adoption pattern in Storytelling with Data: Let's Practice!: Practice with us (one worked problem with full solution in the book), Practice on your own (open problems with complete answers in Appendix G of the Practice Workbook; this page offers short diagnostic hints), and Practice at work (an open-ended prompt to apply the chapter's move to a live artifact). This page hosts the middle tier.