Peeking at live numbers during a festive window

During 11.11 and year-end sales, inboxes fill with screenshots of live experiment charts. Each screenshot is a peek. If the brief said you would stop at a fixed date, those peeks are extra looks at the same data. They change how surprised you should be by a “win” on the morning you happened to look.

We do not forbid a team from watching operations. We do require the memo to say that stopping was optional and opportunistic, or that a pre-declared sequential rule was used. Pretending the Friday screenshot was the planned close-out is the problem.

If the sale itself is the treatment’s environment, say so. A banner that only “works” when the whole site is already discounted is a sale banner, not a default homepage. The readout should not mix those stories.

If you already peeked, tell the desk. We would rather write an honest caveat than reconstruct a stopping rule you did not follow.