groun knowledge base

Analytics without the fog.

A living reference for business analytics, statistics, marketing, sales, finance, AI, and the principles behind groun.

20 core guides24 glossary termsEvidence before confidence

Business analytics is the practice of collecting, validating, organizing, and interpreting data to support a decision. A useful analysis begins with a business question, not with a chart.

Descriptive analytics explains what happened. Diagnostic analytics explores why it happened. Predictive analytics estimates what may happen. Prescriptive analytics recommends an action and its trade-offs.

A metric becomes useful only when its definition, denominator, time period, segment, data source, owner, and decision rule are clear.

groun finding: A dashboard without a decision owner usually becomes reporting theatre.

Glossary

Words behind the numbers.

Short definitions for the language used in analysis, experiments, forecasts, and management reviews.

Anomaly

An observation or pattern that differs materially from an expected baseline.

Attribution

A rule for assigning credit for an outcome across observed touchpoints.

Baseline

The comparison state used to interpret a change.

Cohort

A group sharing a starting event or characteristic.

Confidence interval

A range produced by a procedure that quantifies estimation uncertainty.

Conversion rate

The share of eligible entities completing a defined action.

Data lineage

The trace from a metric back through transformations to its original source.

Denominator

The eligible population used beneath a rate or ratio.

Dimension

A field used to segment a metric, such as source, product, or region.

Forecast

An estimate of future outcomes conditional on data and assumptions.

Guardrail

A metric that must not deteriorate while optimizing another outcome.

Incrementality

The outcome caused by an intervention beyond what would otherwise occur.

KPI

A metric selected to track progress toward a specific objective.

Leading indicator

A measure expected to move before the final business outcome.

Metric grain

The level at which each metric record is uniquely defined.

North star metric

A durable measure of customer value creation for product direction.

Outlier

An extreme observation that may be real, exceptional, or erroneous.

P-value

A probability calculated under a null model, not the probability a hypothesis is true.

Retention

The share of a cohort remaining active or valuable over time.

Scenario

A conditional model that explores a chosen set of assumptions.

Segment

A meaningful subset used to compare behaviour or performance.

Statistical power

The probability that a test detects an effect of a specified size when it exists.

Variance

The average squared distance of observations from their mean.

Win rate

Won opportunities divided by opportunities eligible for a decision.

Marketing

Acquisition, attribution, incrementality, retention, and channel economics.

Sales

Lead quality, stage conversion, velocity, coverage, and forecast hygiene.

Finance

Margin, cash, runway, unit economics, and investment return.

AI and data

Quality, evidence, uncertainty, forecasting, and responsible decision support.

Trust

Privacy, metric contracts, access boundaries, and visible caveats.