or .. veni vidi viblogged
well, after a brief globe trotting to few places here and there, I had to go to where literally every other Indian IT employee goes. America. After spending most of my first 4 days here indoors I guess I am both qualified and bored enough to write this post. And after spending good amount of weekend time clicking remote or flicking matrimonials or licking your plate, I am sure you are also eager to read this post while trying to focus on work. So without further ….
My travel had nothing exciting to write home about, unless you want to call watching-6-movies – getting-served-by-male-air-hostesses – and-loosing-one-of-your-suitcases-in-transit exciting. Anyways what is really the matter with muscular and cold looking male air hostesses? Have I formed stereotypes watching too much of those red skirted kingfisher ladies or it is how they work in this part of the world? well .. whatever
So I walk out of the Columbus intl. airport feeling anorexic from all the in flight consumables and hail a cab. As I try to explain the driver where I wanted to go, I quickly learned that he knows nothing except driving. I mean not even reading or writing. I guess this is what us consultants call verticalization. So while I spell letter by letter and point it on the GPS unit our man was able to configure the address and get the directions. He is a sweet man though.
The first cultural shock came in a matter of 23 seconds. I have quickly learned that I have reached US on a super extra long weekend called thanksgiving weekend. Well, I couldn’t be more thankful though. I was in no mood to work after what seemed like a zillion hours of listening to “stow your brain in the overhead compartment, buckle your belt to the seat and restore your feet from the seat in front of you”. So I spent rest of my day wondering what my wife has packed in the other suitcase that went missing in the transit. I realized it contained important life saving stuff like my camera, bathing soap, bed sheet, pillow and eatables.
Next morning my room-mate suggested that we go get some milk from the near by pharmacy. So we walked across the street and entered in to a place that looked almost like half the size of Chennai central railway station. You could buy Christmas trees, digital cameras, bedsheets apart from medicines there. I must tell you this, here everything that is in liquid form (can be liquified) is measured in gallons, including but not limited to espresso shots, coke or tequila.
Rest of my 4 days here involved more of walking across the street to buy some coffee or wearing too many clothes and watching some Simpson’s while sitting on the couch. I guess that part matches pretty much with the life in India, except that I still miss my suitcase.
A last tip to anyone curious enough to read till here: a gallon actually means 3.7 ltrs but feels like a whole lot of coffee that an entire state of Goa can drink in a morning.
PS: Image belongs to http://www.commercialrealtygroup.com
18 Responses to “Best Charts to Compare Actual Values with Targets – What is your take?”
Great post. I can't vote, though, because the answer I want to put down is "it depends". As with all visualisations, you've got to take into account your audience, your purpose, technical skills, where it will be viewed, etc.
I'm with Andy: It depends. Some I would use, some I might use, some I won't touch with a barge pole.
Naturally I have comments 🙂
The dial gauge, though familiar, is less easy to read than a linear type of chart (thermometer or bullet). It's really no better than the traffic lights, because all it can really tell you is which category the point falls in: red, yellow, or green.
By the same token, pie charts are so familiar, people don't know they can't read them. Remember how long it takes kids to learn to read an analog clock?
Bullet charts don't show trends.
With any of the charts that have a filled component and a marker or ine component, it makes more sense to use the filled component (area/ column) for target, and the lines or markers for actual.
[...] Best Charts to Compare Actual values with Targets (or Budgets … [...]
I voted for #6 even though I agree with the other comments that it depends.
The majority of the votes are for the #2, thermometer chart. I still have yet to understand what happens when you are above plan/goal, which was brought up in yesterday's post.
Also, I agree with Jon in that it would be better to flip the series and make the filled part the target or goal and the line or marker the actual.
I am also a fan of using text when appropriate if the data is among other metrics in a type of dashboard. Calling it out by saying actual and % achievement is a good option.
Another "it depends" vote. Are you just looking at one or are you comparing a number of targets with actuals? You didn't include a text box. The problem with sentences is that they can get lost in a page of gray text. A text box can call attention to the numbers and line them up effectively.
I'm with Jon: "Some I would use, some I might use, some I won’t touch with a barge pole" and I'm surprised that some of your readers voted for the last group.
Jon says:
With any of the charts that have a filled component and a marker or line component, it makes more sense to use the filled component (area/ column) for target, and the lines or markers for actual.
Why does this make more sense? I like 6 the way it is, although I would use a heavy dash for the plan/target marker.
"It depends" is also my take. What I usually try to drill into my clients dashboard design is the fu ndamental difference between spot results (am I on target for this month) and long term trends.. I always try to create 3 different set of graphs to represent real perormance:
- spot results vs objectives
- cumulative results vs objectives
- long-term trend (moving average) mostly) to see where we're going
[...] Best Charts to Compare Actual Values with Targets – What is your take? (tags: excel charts) [...]
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Jon says:
With any of the charts that have a filled component and a marker or line component, it makes more sense to use the filled component (area/ column) for target, and the lines or markers for actual.
Why does this make more sense? I like 6 the way it is, although I would use a heavy dash for the plan/target marker.
I totally agree, Bob. I would normally favour a line for the target and a column for the actual, you can see quite easily then which columns break through the line, then.
[...] best charts to compare actual values with targets — den Status mal anders zeigen, z. B. als Tacho [...]
Thermometer charts: "Not appropriate when actual values exceed targets" - this is easily solved by making the "mercury" portion a different color from the border, then you can clearly see where the expected range ends and the actual values keep going.
People seem to knock gauges quite a bit in dashboarding, but trying to show comparison of realtime data between operating sites and targets for each site can easily be done with a bank of gauges that have the optimal operating points at 12 o'clock.
The human eye is great at pattern stripping, and any deviation of a gauge from the expected 12 position will quickly register with an operator and attract his attention. Using a colour background, or meter edge, will also indicate the sensitivity of a particular site.
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I am wondering how will the plotting work, for some of the targets which may have been achieved before time. E.g. for the month of Jul the target was 226 and the actual was 219. So the chart will show a deficit in meeting the target by 7 points but what if this 7 may have been completed earlier in month of June. So ideally it not a deficit.