What actually moves the number
Drivers, seasons and events, separated from the things everybody blames and nobody has ever tested.
Drivers, and the Ones Nobody Tested
How to tell a driver that moves the number from one everybody believes in, the test that separates them, and what to do with the beliefs that fail it.
Seasonality Is Several Things at Once
Annual, monthly, weekly and daily cycles overlay each other in every demand series. How to separate them, which are stable, and which one most forecasts get wrong.
The Weekly Shape
The day-of-week pattern is the largest and most stable thing in most demand series. How to estimate it, how it drifts, and what breaks it.
Events You Know About in Advance
The event calendar is the highest-value input a middle-horizon forecast has, and it usually does not exist. What goes in it, who supplies each line, and how to keep it.
Campaigns, Launches and the Lift Nobody Measured
Why the expected lift from a campaign or launch is almost always higher than the observed one, how to estimate it from your own history, and how to carry a first-time estimate honestly.
Weather, and Other Things People Blame
The explanations that get offered for a miss and never tested, why they survive, and the cheap test that settles most of them.
Demand You Created Yourself
A large share of workforce demand is generated by the organisation's own actions, which makes it forecastable from internal plans rather than from the demand series.
When the Driver Stops Driving
Relationships that held for years stop holding, usually gradually. How to notice, what causes it, and why a coefficient should have a review date on it.