Importance of Double-Checking Data in Reports

This summer I am swamped with evaluation projects....three separate grants...three sets of deliverables...and never enough graduate student support it seems to get things done. Over the  years I've gotten much better at giving up some control of my projects to my advanced students....so they can learn project management and I can work under 70 hours a week.  :)

However, even though I may give up the reigns from time to time I can't stress enough the importance of having multiple eyes review report data prior to a report going out to a client. Recently I had a student draft a report for a very important client (i.e., one who actually pays us and hopefully will hire us again!) and as I was reviewing the tables something seemed off. The means and standard deviations for some of the items just didn't make sense. Since I keep copies of all versions of the datasets (so important!) I went back to the one used to generate the report and reran some of the analyses. SO GLAD THAT I DID!!!! The numbers in the table were wrong....not just a little wrong or small typos but completely wrong, copied incorrectly from the output files. Rating scales were reversed, numbers were transposed...it was a mess. After my slight meltdown, since the report was due that day and there was no way that this was going to get fixed quickly...I reran all analyses and redid the tables. Yes, the report was a couple of days late....but it was correct and ultimately that is what I want to be able to give to my client.

So....the morale of this post. First, always have multiple people review the data in the tables...you never know when mistakes could be made. Second, don't wait till last minute to get a draft of the report to review.....you never know how much editing might be needed. Lastly, keep all versions of all data....so much easier to detect mistakes along the way.

Oh, and always have emergency chocolate handy in your office. Definitely helped me get over my meltdown a lot quicker.

:)