Before this: Hand off a cleaning job: rules, exceptions, reconciliation
The idea
Many cleaning choices have no single right answer: quarantine strictly or accept with a flag; merge on email or wait for review.
Explain each option in one line, show how it changes the key numbers, and recommend one with your reason.
Let the owner decide when the choice changes business meaning.
Worked example
Input: strict ranges reject 15% of rows
- Visual
(document) Option A strict · Option B flag · impact on totals
- SQL (DuckDB)
SELECT reason, COUNT(*), SUM(amount) FROM exceptions GROUP BY ALL
- pandas
exceptions.groupby("reason")["amount"].agg(["count", "sum"])
Result: Strict: revenue −4.1%; flag: unchanged revenue, 15% rows marked
Common mistakes
- Presenting one option as the only one.
- No numbers.
- Deciding business meaning alone.
Check yourself
What three things does a good trade-off explanation include?
Options, their impact on the numbers, and a recommendation.
Practice it
Validate quantities and prices against ranges.