The number that was wrong
A plausible board figure that wasn't — and the mis-join Rob caught before it reached the table.
A board pack reported Segment A revenue at $0. The client’s own read said $380K. Both came from the same warehouse — so which was right?
Before reporting the split, we checked whether the rows were being filtered out or mis-joined. It was a mis-join: the segment key resolved against the wrong dimension table, silently dropping every Segment A row. The $0 wasn’t a finding — it was a bug. And if one segment was mis-joined, every segment total in that report was suspect.
The decision it would have derailed: a planned exit from “underperforming” Segment A. Strip the join error and Segment A was the second-strongest line in the book.
A wrong number costs a decision, not a slide revision. This is the kind of catch a verification gate makes routine, not lucky.