Capstone: The story & the fix

Findings become influence in this phase. Two deliverables: the readout package (how the organization hears the answer) and the process recommendation (how the fix gets installed and stays installed). Together they're what distinguishes an analyst from a report generator.

The readout package

1. 1Spec and build 2-3 evidence charts. Titles are claims; the interesting series highlighted; axes honest. Run each through AI's what-will-be-misread critique.
2. 2Write the one-pager: answer → beats → ask → confidence → appendix pointers. Then the 10-second test on a colleague who knows nothing. Rewrite until it passes; it usually takes two rounds.
3. 3Run the persona Q&A with your real personas — your sponsor, your skeptic, and whoever owns the thing your finding implicates (there's almost always one; find them before the meeting does).
4. 4Prepare the two re-framings of your answer sentence for the two most senior readers. Submit both; the delta between them is part of what's graded.

The process recommendation

1. 1Map the process your finding lives in — swimlane, [UNKNOWN]s marked, annotated with your data. Walk it with one person who works inside it; note what the walk corrected (that correction is evidence the map is real).
2. 2Score the relevant steps (frequency / rules / error-cost) and assign AI seats — including at least one step you deliberately keep human, defended in a sentence.
3. 3Write the to-be page: fixes sequenced cheap-and-reversible first, each with owner and success metric. If your finding was inconclusive, the recommendation is the investigation to run next — scoped, owned, and sized.