The 2x2 matrix: Thinking inside the box

Putting two and two together It’s a diagram. It’s a decision-making tool. It’s social commentary. It’s the 2×2 matrix! Perhaps you don’t know it by that name—it has many others—but you surely have run into it. The four-quadrant display has been used to parse everything from the priority of tasks (urgent vs. important) to the promise of business ventures (growth vs. market share) to [pandemic grocery essentials](. The simple box is a pretty clear-cut way to make sense of squishy data. Here’s how a 2×2 generally works: One variable is assigned to the x axis, the other to the y axis, and the data points—whatever it is you’re trying to categorize—are placed in one of four quadrants depending on where they fall along the continuum of both variables. It’s hard to track down the first ever 2×2, but like other data visualizations, its use likely exploded after Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint made professional chart builders out of us all. Its ubiquity might also have to do with our growing need to manage the data deluge we’re subjected to every day. But a lengthy explanation of the 2×2 defeats the tidiness with which it communicates complicated ideas. As Morpheus told Neo: You have to see it for yourself! 🐦 [Tweet this!]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( [Quartz Weekly Obsession] The 2x2 matrix April 28, 2021 Putting two and two together --------------------------------------------------------------- It’s a diagram. It’s a decision-making tool. It’s social commentary. It’s the 2×2 matrix! Perhaps you don’t know it by that name—it has many others—but you surely have run into it. The four-quadrant display has been used to parse everything from the priority of tasks (urgent vs. important) to the promise of business ventures (growth vs. market share) to [pandemic grocery essentials](. The simple box is a pretty clear-cut way to make sense of squishy data. Here’s how a 2×2 generally works: One variable is assigned to the x axis, the other to the y axis, and the data points—whatever it is you’re trying to categorize—are placed in one of four quadrants depending on where they fall along the continuum of both variables. It’s hard to track down the first ever 2×2, but like other data visualizations, its use likely exploded after Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint made professional chart builders out of us all. Its ubiquity might also have to do with our growing need to manage the data deluge we’re subjected to every day. But a lengthy explanation of the 2×2 defeats the tidiness with which it communicates complicated ideas. As Morpheus told Neo: You have to see it for yourself! 🐦 [Tweet this!]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( Explain it like I’m 5! A visualization is worth 1,000 words --------------------------------------------------------------- A 2×2 matrix is sometimes called a model or a method, but when put on display it’s an organized way to present information, in rows and columns. What 2x2s excel at is sifting through qualitative or conceptual data, says Scott Berinato, author of [Good Charts: The HBR Guide to Making Smarter, More Persuasive Data Visualizations](. One example: How people’s feelings about common grocery items have changed as a result of the pandemic. This kind of visualization works because it appeals to the brain’s bent towards shortcuts. It’s a simple and elegant way to show complex relationships between various ideas. “The brain retains that information better,” says Berinato, a senior editor at Harvard Business Review. Our love for 2x2s is also cultural. Through constant exposure to visual representations, we absorb and reproduce their logic. Whether as a thinking tool or as a straight-forward display, one thing to remember about the matrices is that despite their orderly grid, they are subjective. “All visualizations are abstractions and simplifications,” says Berinato. “Every single one is a manipulation.” Brief history of famous grids [~250 BCE:]( Eratosthenes, the one-time director of the Library of Alexandria sometimes called the father of geography, lays a grid over maps, though he places the lines to match points of interest instead of spacing them out evenly. [~150 BCE:]( Greek astronomer, mathematician, and geographer Hipparchus, establishes a regularly spaced (and easier to use) grid. [1637:]( In his seminal Discourse on Method (which also features the famous “I think, therefore I am”), René Descartes includes an appendix titled La Géométrie in which x and y, the basis of the Cartesian plane, make their debut. [1905:]( Geneticist Reginald Punnett comes up with a gridded square diagram to predict the chances of offspring inheriting traits, for example, whether a sweet pea plant is more likely to produce white or purple flowers, or the likelihood a child has her mother’s or father’s eye color. [1950:]( Mathematicians interested in game theory start using square grids to explore how individual decisions driven by self-interest affect collective outcomes. The most famous example, the Prisoner’s Dilemma, pits two captured criminal associates mulling over whether to rat out their partner or say nothing. [1968:]( Lithuanian-French linguist Algirdas Julius Greimas introduces the Semiotic Square, which in turn is inspired by Aristotle’s [Square of Opposition](. He uses two [crossing diagonal lines](, each leading to opposing concepts, to deconstruct meaning. [2004:]( New York magazine debuts its [Approval Matrix](, self-described as “Our deliberately oversimplified guide to who falls where on our taste hierarchies.” It rates popular culture on a matrix spanning from low- to high-brow, and despicable to brilliant. Quotable “I consider it a multi-faceted, prismatic, 5-Dimensional environment with a hidden wormhole, impossible to fully portray on paper, so ‘matrix’ seemed to work as shorthand.” —[Emily Nussbaum](, creator of New York magazine’s Approval Matrix YouTube Watch this! The chart that changed the business world --------------------------------------------------------------- Boston Consulting Group’s growth share matrix, created in 1968, is one of the most famous 2x2s. At one point it was used by [half of all Fortune 500 companies]( (pdf) as a framework to figure out where to invest. In 2011, the Harvard Business Review put it at the top of its compilation of “[The Charts that Changed the World](.” In this video, business consultant Sandy Moose explains how to use the iconic tool today. Originals Pop quiz Which of these does not appear in BCGs famous growth share matrix? DogExclamation pointStarCow Correct. The fourth quadrant contains a question mark, not an exclamation point. Incorrect. If your inbox doesn’t support this quiz, find the solution at bottom of email. Fun fact! Stephen Covey, whose wildly popular book [The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People]( popularized a [time-management matrix]( to “put first things first,” [was once spotted]( lying down in a gym shower room trying to brush his teeth and shave at the same time while being sprayed by several shower heads. It’s unclear where he would have placed that set of activities in his famed four-quadrant system: urgent and important; important and not urgent; urgent and not important; or not important and not urgent. Take me down this 🐰 hole! What else are 2x2s useful for? To categorize 2x2s, like in this chart about [different types of data visualization]( by HBR’s Berinato. 2x2s belong on the left-hand side, opposite graphics involving hard statistics. They’re in the bottom square, if you’re using them to brainstorm; or the top square, if you’ve settled on the idea you want to communicate. [A 2x2 matrix on four types of data visualization (declarative, explanatory, conceptual, data-driven)] Of course, you could have figured all that out just by looking at the matrix. Giphy Poll What’s the best use of a 2x2 matrix? [Click here to vote]( Time managementScenario buildingAnalyzing 2x2 matrices Elena Xausa for Quartz Membership The 2×2 matrix may be here to stay, but a little over a year after the start of the pandemic, the dramatic and lasting impact that the Covid-19 crisis has had on the workplace is [coming into focus](. Read about the changes to remote work, corporate diversity initiatives, employee mental health, and more in our guide to [what a year of Covid has done to work](. All of our field guides will come into focus once you sign up for a Quartz membership. We promise it will have a dramatic and lasting impact on how you view the world. Try it free for a week by clicking the button. [Sign me up.]( 💬 let's talk! In last week’s poll about [bankruptcy](, 50% said they would revive Radioshack, because you can never have too many TV antennas. 💌 Multiple readers wrote in to lament the lack of a gif of The Office’s (US) Michael Scott declaring bankruptcy. Unfortunately, spatial constraints prevented us from using it in last week’s newsletter. Please enjoy it here: [Michael Scott from the Office declares bankruptcy](Giphy) 🤔 [What did you think of today’s email?]( 💡 [What should we obsess over next?]( 🎲 [Show me a random Obsession]( Today’s email was written by [Ana Campoy](, edited by [Liz Webber](, and produced by [Jordan Weinstock](. [facebook]([twitter]([external-link]( The correct answer to the quiz is Exclamation point. Enjoying the Quartz Weekly Obsession? [Send this link]( to a friend! Want to advertise in the Quartz Weekly Obsession? Send us an email at ads@qz.com. Not enjoying it? No worries. [Click here]( to unsubscribe. Quartz | 675 Avenue of the Americas, 4th Fl | New York, NY 10011 | United States