Data Detective

Data Detective is an investigation game for learning how to make decisions with imperfect data. Teams have a limited budget to buy clues, spot interpretation traps, and produce a report. The Campus+ case brings classic errors to life: truncated axis, change in measurement, small sample, misleading average, or hasty causality. It is designed for business, product, marketing, HR, or training teams that use dashboards.

Walkthrough

1. 1

   Set the Scene

   5 min

   Announce the case: the dashboard shows about −30% sign-ups in March. Form teams, distribute tokens and canvases. Explain that there are real causes and false leads. “You are the investigation team called in before an urgent decision. Your mission: understand what is really happening before acting.”

   Tip — Do not explain the traps yet: let the Trap cards play their role as memory aids.

2. 2

   Rules and Clue Market

   8 min

   Explain the 8 tokens, clue costs, the log, and the final report. Show the clue titles without reading their text. Trap and Decision cards remain visible on the table. “You will not be able to buy everything. A good investigation also means choosing what not to look at.”

   Tip — If a group asks for advice, answer with a question: “What hypothesis do you want to test?”

3. 3

   Investigation

   25 min

   Teams buy clues from you, read them, and fill in the Log. They freely link Trap cards to purchased clues. Announce time remaining at 15, 10, and 5 minutes. “Write down your evidence as you go. An unwritten intuition will not count in the report.”

   Tip — Keep a firm pace: time pressure prevents endless analysis.

4. 4

   Investigation Report

   10 min

   Ask each team to complete its Report: selected causes, evidence, spotted traps, and no more than two decisions. Unspent tokens are kept for the score. “Your report must convince a committee in a hurry: few words, evidence, and no more than two decisions.”

   Tip — Remind teams that a costly and useless decision can lose points.

5. 5

   Presentations and Score

   12 min

   Each team presents in 2 minutes. Note the causes, traps, and decisions. Then reveal the case truth, award points, and announce the score. “We will score the reasoning, not speaking speed. Name the clue that supports each claim.”

   Tip — In a large group, limit each team to one cause and one decision before filling in the rest.

6. 6

   Debrief

   10 min

   Facilitate the debrief questions in three phases: feel, understand, transfer. Bring out useful reflexes: check measurement, segment, compare sources, test before taking major action. “This case is fictional, but the traps are very ordinary. What do you want to remember for your next decisions?”

   Tip — End with a concrete commitment: one question each person will ask at the next dashboard review.

Variants

• Large Group : For up to 30 people, make 6 teams of 5. During presentations, each team states only its main cause, one trap, and one decision; then complete with the solution sheet.
• Remote Version : Use a shared board. Clue titles are locked sticky notes; the facilitator adds the text when the team pays. Tokens are tracked in a visible column.
• Competitive Mode : Display the score live after presentations. In case of a tie, decide by the fewest tokens spent, then by the least costly decision.
• Learning Mode : After 12 minutes of investigation, allow a 3-minute pause in which each team must state the hypothesis it is trying to falsify.