What is a bullet chart?

Posted by CH Leong on Saturday, December 13, 2008 · Leave a Comment 

A bullet chart is a relatively new kind of chart invented by Stephen Few.  I was pleasantly surprised to see one in a recent copy of  The Wall Street Journal.  A bullet chart looks like a column chart “within” a column chart.  It is a great way to compare 2 series of data together. For example, sales figures from 2 different years.

During our “Creating Executive Dashboards in Excel” course, I’m going to talk in detail how to create such bullet charts in Excel. They are a very compact way to display key performance indicators (KPIs).  It can compare actual performance with “Poor Performance”, “Satisfactory Performance” and “Excellent Performance” levels all within a tiny bullet chart.

Bullet charts from Wall Street Journal

Bullet charts from Wall Street Journal

Bullet chart in Excel

Bullet chart in Excel

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