Run Charts

Run Charts are a great way to track interventions or change over time. The concept is simple enough: create a time-series graph (one where the horizontal variable is time and the vertical variable is your measurement) and place a median line on the graph.

The median line will move up and down as your measurement data moves up and down. Once you have this setup, you want to look for two major events:

Trends: Trends are when 5 or more consecutive data points move in the same direction. This would indicate growth or decay significantly and that perhaps a shift may occur.

 

or Shifts: a shift has occurred when 6 or more data points fall on the same side of the median. This would indicate that what is being measured has now shifted to a new measurement due to a treatment or intervention.

 

Run-charts help you know when something you’ve implement is changing or has changed. A lot of power in a simple tool!