Stakeholder Readout

Stakeholder Readout

When to use this skill

Use whenever an analysis output needs to be communicated to a non-DS audience (PM, eng, exec, sales). Triggers:

• "Write a readout for…"
• "Summarize the findings"
• "Make this stakeholder-friendly"
• "Exec summary of…"
• "Share this with the team"

Pair with any analysis-producing skill (ab-test-analysis, cohort-analysis, survival-analysis, etc.). This skill is the packaging layer.

Required inputs

The readout structure

Every readout has exactly five sections, in this order:

1. TL;DR — One sentence, one decision recommendation
2. Context — What question + why now
3. Findings — 2-5 key facts with evidence
4. Decision — What to do, by whom, by when
5. Caveats & next steps — What we don't know

Workflow

1. Write the TL;DR first. If you can't summarize in one sentence, you don't understand it yet. The TL;DR must contain:

   • The answer to the question
   • The recommended action
   • Confidence indicator ("strong evidence" / "directional" / "preliminary")

2. List 2-5 findings, each with:

   • The fact (one sentence)
   • The data behind it (number + comparison + context)
   • Why it matters (decision relevance)

3. State the decision explicitly. Not "this suggests we might want to consider…" — but "Ship the change" / "Hold and investigate" / "No action needed."

4. List caveats, sorted by how much they should change the decision. If a caveat would change the recommendation, surface it at the top.

5. End with next steps — concrete, owned, time-bound.

6. Run the conclusions audit before publishing. Every readout passes the three checks below (see "Conclusions audit") — claims↔evidence traceability, causation language, and cherry-picking. A readout that fails any check doesn't ship until fixed.

Output format

# <Analysis Title>

**Author:** <name>  
**Audience:** <PM / Exec / Eng / Mixed>  
**Date:** <YYYY-MM-DD>  
**Status:** <Final | Draft for review | Preliminary>

---

## TL;DR
<One sentence. Includes finding + recommendation + confidence.>

**Recommendation:** <Specific action, e.g., "Ship the new onboarding flow to 100%">  
**Confidence:** <Strong | Moderate | Directional / preliminary>

---

## Context
- **Question:** <The decision this analysis informs>
- **Why now:** <The trigger — leadership ask, opportunity sized, problem detected>
- **What we did:** <Method in one paragraph — no jargon, name the technique>

---

## Findings

### Finding 1: <one-sentence headline>
<2-3 sentences expanding the fact, with the specific number and a comparison>

> Evidence: chart, table, or query result

### Finding 2: <one-sentence headline>
<...>

### Finding 3: <one-sentence headline>
<...>

---

## Decision

**Recommended:** <Specific action>

**Owner:** <Name(s)>

**Timeline:** <When>

**Why this and not alternatives:**
- Considered: <alternative 1> — rejected because <reason>
- Considered: <alternative 2> — rejected because <reason>

---

## Caveats & next steps

### What we don't know
- <Caveat 1, ordered by how much it could change the decision>
- <Caveat 2>

### Next steps
1. **<Action>** — <owner> — <by when>
2. **<Action>** — <owner> — <by when>
3. **<Action>** — <owner> — <by when>

---

## Appendix
<Optional: methodology details, charts, secondary findings — only for those who want the depth>

Conclusions audit

Run this on the finished draft, before it ships. Audit the narrative as a skeptical reviewer would — the goal is that no claim in the readout can be embarrassed by someone reading the appendix.

Check 1: Every claim is supported by evidence

Walk the narrative claim by claim. For each declarative statement, ask: which number, chart, or test in this readout backs it?

• Every claim in the TL;DR, findings, and decision must trace to specific evidence in the document (or its appendix) — not to "we know" or "it's well understood."
• The strength of the language must match the strength of the evidence:

• Watch for smuggled claims: causal or quantitative statements hiding in transitions ("because users were confused, retention fell") — that "because" needs evidence too.

Check 2: Causation language matches the study design

Causal verbs — caused, drove, increased, reduced, led to, because of — are earned by design, not by effect size.

• Scrub the TL;DR hardest: it's the most-quoted sentence and the most likely place an "is associated with" silently becomes "drove."
• If the recommendation requires a causal claim the design can't support, say so explicitly and route to ab-test-design or causal-inference as a next step.

Check 3: No cherry-picking

The narrative must survive contact with everything you looked at, not just what made the slide.

• Metrics: were any metrics checked but omitted because they were flat or negative? Report them — one line each is enough ("Guardrails: latency, churn, support tickets — all flat").
• Time windows: does the conclusion hold on the natural window (full quarter, all weeks), or only the window shown? If the window was chosen after seeing data, disclose it.
• Segments: is the headline a whole-population effect, or did one segment carry it? Report the segment composition; never present a subgroup win as a global win.
• Multiple comparisons: if 20 segments/metrics were tested, ~1 will look significant by chance. State how many things were tested; treat unplanned subgroup findings as hypotheses, not conclusions.
• Outliers & exclusions: any rows/users excluded? State the rule, the count, and whether the conclusion holds with them included.

The two-question gut check:

1. "If a skeptic saw everything I looked at, would they accept this narrative?"
2. "Did I decide the story before or after I saw this evidence?" — if before, the omitted evidence gets extra scrutiny.

Audit output

Append a short audit trail to the readout (or appendix) so reviewers can verify the audit ran:

## Conclusions audit
- Claims↔evidence: all N claims traced to evidence (claim 3 softened: directional, not significant)
- Causation language: observational design — all causal verbs replaced with "associated with"
- Cherry-picking: 6 metrics examined, 2 flat (reported in appendix); no post-hoc window changes; headline effect holds with outliers included

Validation checks

• TL;DR is ONE sentence
• TL;DR includes a specific recommendation
• Each finding has a number AND a comparison (vs prior period, vs benchmark, vs alternative)
• Decision is unambiguous (not "could be valuable to explore")
• Owner and timeline named for every next step
• Caveats include the worst-case "this could be wrong because…"
• Length appropriate for audience (exec = 1 page; team = up to 3 pages)
• No statistical jargon without translation (p-value → "very strong evidence")
• Conclusions audit ran: every claim traced to evidence in the doc
• Causation language matches the study design (causal verbs only for experiments)
• No cherry-picking: flat/negative metrics reported; windows and exclusions disclosed; subgroup wins not presented as global

Edge cases & failure modes

• No clear recommendation. If the data doesn't support a decision, the recommendation is "do X to get a clearer answer" — not silence. Common phrasings: "Run a follow-up experiment to disambiguate," "Defer for 4 weeks pending more data."

• Findings contradict the asker's hypothesis. Lead with the contradiction, don't bury it. Stakeholders trust analyses that confirm their priors AND ones that don't — they don't trust analyses that hedge.

• Insufficient sample size / inconclusive. Mark TL;DR as "Inconclusive — recommend X to get a definitive answer." Don't pretend uncertainty is certainty.

• Stakeholder asks for a specific framing. Push back if the framing distorts the finding. The job is accurate, not flattering.

• Multiple audiences with different needs. Default to the highest-stakes audience (exec). Optional: write 2 versions — 1-page exec, 3-page team.

Writing style rules

Templates by analysis type

See templates/ directory in the parent repo for:

• ab-test-readout.md
• cohort-readout.md
• model-readout.md
• insight-doc.md

Related skills

• ab-test-analysis — produces the analysis; this skill packages it
• cohort-analysis, funnel-analysis — same
• metric-definition — provides the precise definitions readouts reference
• Any modeling skill — wrap its output in this structure