worked-example.md

Worked example: a quarterly review that needs a budget decision

Read this page when you are not sure how much to change the raw work.

The raw work

A revenue operations team sends a quarterly review of about 500 words to the sales leader and the finance leader. The text starts with "As discussed, here is a comprehensive overview". The decision that the team needs is in the last paragraph, as item 3 of 4 recommendations. A note after the last paragraph says that finance has a different number for lost revenue.

The weak version (text in boxes)

Title: "Quarterly performance review".
Six cards with the same paragraphs, one card for each topic.
Twelve numbers of equal size.
The decision is in the fifth card.
The different finance number is not shown.

The recipient must read all six cards to find the decision. The review takes longer than the generation. This is slop with a better appearance.

The good version

Top (10 seconds)

Verdict: "New revenue reached 88% of the plan, and the pipeline for next quarter is too small for its plan."
Ask: "Sales leader and finance leader: before 16 October, decrease the plan or approve 2 contract sales development representatives."
Three tiles: new revenue against the plan, pipeline coverage against the usual coverage, lost revenue shown as "$310K or $335K" with the conflict tag.

Body (2 minutes)

First tab: the two options side by side, on the same criteria (cost, coverage, trade-off). The source does not select one, and the page says that.
Second tab: retention, as tiles and one chart.
Third tab: new business, cut by the human to the two facts that explain the result.
Fourth tab: actions, each with one owner and one date.

Evidence (on demand)

Sources, with the date of each.
Assumptions and gaps: the year of the dates, one term that was renamed.
Method: the one calculated coverage number, with its division.
Cut: the segment detail and the opening paragraph, kept for the human.

What the human changed in review

Moved the number conflict to the top, because the finance leader will ask about it.
Removed one tile that the recipients did not need.
Cut one tab to two facts.
Changed the tab order.

Four changes, made in less than two minutes with the review controls. Then the human confirmed that they read all of it, and the banner changed to "Signed".

The lesson

The first version was 80% correct. The 20% that the human changed was the part that only the human knew: what these two recipients will ask first. Build the page so that this 20% is fast to change.