In a previous post, Chris expounded on the methods for generating good tornado diagrams. It's relatively straightforward to create a meaningful tornado for a business problem defined by a few symmetric quantitative chance events (i.e., the kind with 10/50/90 assessments and Low/Nominal/High outcomes).
As I'm sure you've heard, Volkswagen is in a whole lot of hot water after admitting they equipped their diesel cars with software that allowed them to cheat on EPA emissions tests. Affected car models were found to be spewing as much as 35 times the amount of nitrous oxide (NOx) permitted by the EPA in real world driving conditions. NOx is a pollutant that can cause a variety of adverse respiratory problems, particularly in susceptible populations. (https://www.epa.gov/no2-pollution)
The humble tornado diagram, long a staple of risk and decision analytic methods, is disarmingly simple, but it can be surprisingly difficult to do right. Tornadoes are on my mind lately because we've recently published a video on them:
