In this article we will learn what a Panel Chart is and how you can construct a panel chart in Excel.
What is a Panel Chart?
A panel chart is a set of similar charts neatly aligned in panels to help us understand some data which has multiple variables in it.
Here is an example panel chart showing the total defects per module over the last 4 weeks.
Panel charts are also called by names “trellis displays” or “small multiples”. They are an effective way to display multi-variable data.
Why use Panel Charts?
Excel has several built-in chart types like stacked column chart, clustered column chart that can help you visualize same data. I have shown 2 alternatives below. First observe them,
As you can see these charts communicate the data very poorly (despite using same colors and other chart elements as the panel chart). This is where a panel chart shines.
How to make a Panel Chart in Excel?
There are 2 approaches to make panel charts in excel.
1. Making one complex chart that internally has panels containing individual charts (requires lots of calculations and chart formatting.)
2. Making different charts and aligning them on excel sheet.
There are merits and de-merits both approaches, but I personally prefer #2, since it is very easy to make panel charts with that approach.
Step 1: Make different charts
Very simple. Make different charts, one for each panel in your panel chart.
Trick: Make the first chart. Format it completely. Now select the chart and press CTRL+D to duplicate it. Now, using the mouse adjust the source data ranges of this new chart. That is all.
Step 2: Adjust Axis Formatting of the charts
You should set the axis minimum and maximum values for all charts at the same level. This will ensure that users can compare values from multiple panels without worrying about axis scale.
Also consider setting the axis labels of subsequent panels (other than first) to white color (or background color). Since axis has same scale and limits, there is no point in showing that in every panel.
Step 3: Align the charts
There are various alignment options possible for panel charts. I have shown a few samples below:
Depending on the number of panels, choose an alignment that works best for you. Keep in mind that when you align vertically, horizontal axis comparison is easier and when you align horizontally, vertical comparison is easier.
So align the charts in a logical order that works for you. And that is all. Your panel chart is ready to roll.
Panel Charts – Things to keep in mind:
- Make sure all panels have similar axis ranges. Otherwise your audience cannot compare panels and the chart becomes useless.
- Select the alignment that is both aesthetic and comparable
- Panel charts usually contain multi-variable data. You must figure out what is the best panel arrangement (in our case, other alternative is, Weekly panels with Defects by Modules) for your audience.
Download Excel Panel Chart Template & Example Workbook:
Click here to download excel panel chart template & examples. [Excel 2007 version here]
Panel Charts – More Resources & Help:
- Jon Peltier has written at length about Panel Charts in Excel. Here is a beautiful article showing vertical panel chart example. Here is an article on Panel Charts with Different Scale.
- Kelly O’ Day has coined the term Panel Charts and he has several useful examples of panel charts in his site Process Trends.
- Juice Analytics beautifully explains what panel charts are.
- I have written about panel charts before. Learn more from incell panel chart, Incell dot plot panel chart, and see some example panel charts in visualizing market share changes.
Have you ever used panel charts? What is your opinion?
I find panel charts very powerful and insightful. However, I hate the fact that making them in Excel is so cumbersome. (but the effort is totally worth it.) I have used panel charts in various consulting and work assignments and wowed my audience.
What about you? Have you ever used panel charts? How do you make them? What is your experience like? Please share using comments.
19 Responses to “How to Distribute Players Between Teams – Evenly”
An excellent solution, especially for large data sets.
Another solution without using solver would be to assign the player with the highest score to Team 1, the 2nd to team 2, 3rd to team 3, 4th to team 3, 5th to team 2, 6th to team 1, 7th to team 1 and it continues. This method would end up with a Std Dev of 0.001247219. This works best with a distribution with lower Std Dev for the dataset.
Full Disclosure: this is not my idea, remember reading something a few years ago. Think it may have been Ozgrid
thinking back I now remember why I read about it. About 10 years back I had to distribute around 300 team members into 25-30 odd teams. Used this method based on their performance scores. I used the method I described to do this and the distribution was pretty fair.
Solver would have saved me a ton of time though 🙂
I think the issue with you first Solver approach was that you took the absolute value of the sum of team deviations (which should always be zero except for rounding) instead of the sum of the absolute values (which is a reasonable measure of how unbalanced the teams are).
Here's another simple algorithm you could use: you start from the top (with players sorted from high to low), and at each step allocate the next player to whichever team has the smallest total so far. You can implement it dynamically with some formulas so it will update automatically when the data changes.
If the scores were more widely distributed (so that this might end up with not all teams the same size), you could add a constraint to only pick among the teams which currently have fewest players at each step, or just stop adding to any team when it hits its quota.
When I tried it on the sample, I got the three teams below, with a STDEV of 0.000942809 (i.e. about half of what Solver got to).
Team 1: John, Hugo, Tom, Josh, Eric, Zane, Charles, Andrew
Team 2: Barry, Michael, Kenny, Joe, Xavier, Patrick, Oliver, William
Team 3: Henry, Steven, Ben, Frank, Kyle, Edward, Cameron, Lachlan
Thanks for sharing!
Hi,
I was looking at all the solutions and this is closest to what I intended to do. I am dividing a bunch of players into 3 soccer teams. Players availability is also a factor while deciding the teams.
So the steps the excel needs to do is as follows:
1) In availability column if "yes" go to next
2) Equally divide 'Goalkeepers', 'Strikers', 'Defenders' basis their quality
So the end result gives each 3 teams a balance of players playing at different positions.
Can this be done on Google spreadsheet with only availability as an input from the user and rest calculates by itself.
Sorry for asking such a pointed question, but I have been struggling to find a solution for it for sometime now!
Hi Ishaan,
I am working on a similar problem at the moment, so I am wondering if you ever found a solution and if you are willing to share what you did.
Hi everyone, this is a variation of the famous Knapsack Problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knapsack_problem.
I had to use a VBA implementation recently as part of a problem, where we ar trying to allocate teams of an organization into different locations (we are a large company with many different team). The goal was to optimally allocate teams to individual buildings without putting too many teams into one building and not splitting teams apart.
As we had around 400 teams of different sizes, solver couldn't handle it anymore. Luckily there is a Knapsack algorithm implementation in VBA readily available on the internet :).
I also went with a heuristic approach first!
An interesting mathematical solution but what if Eric and Xavier can't stand each other or Patrick is best friends with Steven - the real life problems that effect "even" teams.
@Joe
You can add more criteria like
If Eric and Xavier can't stand each other
=OR(AND(E15=1,E16=1),AND(F15=1,F16=1),AND(G15=1,G16=1))
It must be False
If Patrick is best friends with Steven
=OR(AND(E5=1,E17=1),AND(F5=1,F17=1),AND(G5=1,G17=1))
It must be True
Note that the 2 formulas above are exactly the same
except for the ranges
One must be True = Friends
One must be False = Not Friends
Nice Post!
Just one question What if number of players are not even or equally divisible.
Nice post Hui!
I download your workbook and just try to change in options the Precision Restriction from 10E-6 to 10-8 and the Convergence from 10E-4 to 10E-10. The process take almost the same time, but the results was great.
The standard deviation I got was 0,000471.
Team 1: John, Tom, Kenny, Frank, Eric, Xavier, Edward, Zane
Team 2: Steven, Hugo, Ben, Joe, Josh, Oliver, Cameron, William
Team 3: Barry, Henry, Michael, Kyle, Patrick, Charles, Andrew, Lachlan
Great application of Solver! Thanks for the link!
Great explanation. Well done... However, I tried with 6 teams of 4 players and solver never did finish.
How about vba code for the same data set.
I have 3 column A B C wherein A has text and B has number Wherein C is blank. And in C1 been the header C2 where I want the name to come evenly distributed the number which is in Column B.
My Lastcolumn is 1000.
Sorry if I'm being slow here, but how is 'Team Score' calculated? I've gone through the explanation several times but it seems to just appear.
@Hrmft
This process uses the Solver Excel addin
Solver is effectively taking the model and trying different solutions until it gets a solution that meets all the criteria
Then solver puts the solution into the cell and moves to the next cell
So yes it appears to "just appear"
Hi ! Thank you so much ! Works great 🙂
I cannot get the fourth Equation to work in my excel spreadsheet
You have =($E$2:$G$25=0)+($E$2:$G$25=1)=1 as a SUMIF solution, I have, =($F$2:$H$13=0)+($F$2:$H$13=1)=1 as my solution but it does not work. The only thing I changed is the ranges. Any suggestions?
Thank you.
Jim
I cannot get the fourth Equation of TURE or FALSE statements to work in my excel spreadsheet You have =($E$2:$G$25=0)+($E$2:$G$25=1)=1 as a SUMIF solution, I have, =($F$2:$H$13=0)+($F$2:$H$13=1)=1 as my solution but it does not work. The only thing I changed is the ranges. Any suggestions?
Sorry I left some of it out in the previous question,
Thank you. Jim