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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-ops request
Restated: The head of support forwards you a note: «Can I get a dashboard of ticket volume so my leads can see what’s happening on their teams?» Author two BRDs — one for the head of support (portfolio decision) and one for a team lead (operational decision). Name the specific decision each audience is trying to make and the comparison that each chart would need.
Show a diagnostic hint
Diagnostic cue. Draft the six-field BRD, keeping the decision distinct from the question and the comparison explicit.
Complete answers appear in Appendix G of The Defensible Decision: Practice Workbook.
Problem 2 — the marketing-attribution ask
Restated: A VP of Marketing asks for «a marketing performance dashboard for the leadership readout.» Author the BRD. Then name the one field in your BRD that, if answered with the wrong grain, would send the analyst to build the wrong chart. Explain why that field is the load-bearing one for this request.
Show a diagnostic hint
Diagnostic cue. Make the decision, comparison, time window, and success criterion explicit before charting.
Complete answers appear in Appendix G of The Defensible Decision: Practice Workbook.
Related on this site
- Chapter 2 companion page — Marcus’s compromise dashboard walkthrough, further reading, self-check quiz, and the CloudRevenue starter activity.
- Marcus’s compromise dataset — the six-visual compromise and two-BRD solution behind the Chapter 2 companion page.
- Appendix E — BRD Field Guide Resources — the eight-section BRD template used above.
- 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.