A Pareto chart combines descending columns with a cumulative line chart to illustrate the 80/20 principle. Categories are sorted by frequency, and the rising line shows how quickly a few categories account for most of the total — helping prioritize where to focus effort.
Why Space Missions Fail — A Pareto Analysis (1960-2024)
Best for
- Identifying the most significant factors in a dataset
- Applying the 80/20 rule to prioritize issues or causes
- Quality control and defect analysis
Avoid when
- All categories contribute roughly equally — the Pareto principle won't apply
- You want to show trends over time — use a line chart
- Categories have a fixed order that shouldn't be re-sorted by value