For the people who explain the numbers
We used to direct the tools. Now we direct the analysis.
Pulling the detail, tying it out, rebuilding the schedule. That part of close got cheap. Finding out why the number moved did not. Free weekly essays on doing that part well, in whatever tool you use.
One essay a week. No tool tutorials, no pitch. Unsubscribe whenever you like.
Pulling and tying out ate the week. Explaining it got what was left.
- Analysis
- Assembly
- Where each slice went
The pulling is nearly free. The week is the explaining.
Same close. The value moved.Illustrative shape, not measured hours.
Someone always asks why the number moved.
Finding out was the part of the job that needed you. For years it got whatever time was left after the tie outs and the rebuilt schedules. That time is coming back, and most people have not decided what to do with it yet.
The Prodigal Analyst
I trained myself out of the thing I enjoyed most. Then the tool everyone is scared of gave it back.
It starts at month end, with a variance I could not explain and the chase to find it. That chase was the job I loved. Cheap assembly just made it the whole job again.
"It was never about delivering answers. An answer closes a ticket. It was about delivering understanding."
The building got cheap. When the building gets cheap, the only thing left worth paying for is the exact thing I was doing at month end with a variance I could not explain.
Where the work went
Four things the tools cannot do for you, in Excel or anything else. Every essay here is about one of them.
01
Find the real question
"Why is opex up" is rarely the question. Usually it is a reclass, a timing difference, or one vendor. Working out which one is most of the job now.
02
Decide what is worth building
Any report can be built in minutes now. That is the trap. The judgment is in what you leave out of the package.
03
Direct the build
Tell the AI what to pull, then check its work the way you would check a new hire's workpaper. You cannot review what you do not understand.
04
Hand back something people trust
Say what the numbers support and what they do not. The note under the schedule is the part people remember.
What the tools handle now
Pulling the detail, joining it, tying it out, formatting the schedule, drawing the chart. Directed well, that is minutes, not days.
What still needs you
Knowing which variance matters, which one reverses next month, and what to say before the review meeting instead of after it.
The schedule builds itself now. Explaining it is still yours.
What's coming next
Written in order. Subscribers get each one the week it is done.
Essay 02
Where the time should go now that assembly is cheap
An ordinary close week, before and after, line by line. What I stopped doing, and what I do with the hours now.
03
Essay
How I think through a project before touching anything
The questions I ask before I open a file, and the ones I ask the person who sent the request.
04
Essay
What to pay for and what to refuse
Which tools earned a line in my budget, and which ones only made the deck look busier.
05
Worked example
A real project with the reasoning left in
One analysis start to finish, including the wrong turns, so you can see where the time went.
You can't direct what you don't understand.
AI did not remove the need to know the numbers. It raised the stakes and took away the hiding place. A fast, confident, wrong answer is still wrong, and someone still has to sign off on it.
I am packaging how I work into a method: finding the real question under the one I was handed, deciding what is worth building, directing the AI to do the work, and catching it when it is confidently wrong.
Who is writing this
Eric Summers. Analyst first, builder second. Directed Analysis is tied to no product, and it never will be.
15+
Years
Analyzing data for people who had to act on it.
Month end
Where it started
A variance I could not explain, and Excel line graphs I still cringe at.
1,000s
Dashboards
Built or fixed, across industries and tools.
Daily
In public
Building at TableauOps, so the method gets tested every day.
Get the next essay before your next close.
One essay a week on the part of the job the tools cannot do for you. Free, and you can leave any time.