Presenting Data with Stories

What’s something you’ve believed since your early childhood?

For me, it’s to not turn on the inside car lights because the police would arrest you, but how were you told?

Most likely, you were taught by your parents with a story (whether it was fake or not).

The story made any outcome seem realistic and brought some well-needed logic in.

Like how you might convince others by presenting with stories, whether it be a friend or a manager.

Personally, I think I’ve messed up so many presentations because I didn't know how to tell stories.

But looking back, 98% of my presentations failed because I didn't include these 4 parts of storytelling with data:

1. Main Idea (preparation)

2. Beginning (introduction and problem overview)

3. Middle (solution to the problem)

4. End (presenting the solution)

Main Idea

The main idea is the central focus of your presentation and is what you are trying to convey to the audience.

You can quickly identify the main idea by asking yourself:

What is the audience mainly looking for?

What do they need to know about the data?

How will the data visualization support the audience’s needs?

Remember that you are trying to help the audience, which means if the audience benefits from it, your presentation will naturally be more effective and engaging.

The Beginning

Your solution is absolutely useless if your audience doesn’t fully understand what is even happening.

To prevent any confusion, you need to build context by giving important background details.

You can make this even more effective if you build towards a pain point most of the audience shares.

However, the main issue must be presented as concisely as possible (preferably in one sentence) if you want the audience to understand.

The Middle

This is the part where you solve the problem you have introduced using your data visualization.

You will explain the data point and address how the audience can solve the problem by demonstrating the issue with your dashboard.

Additionally, the level of detail you include is completely dependent on your audience (Executive/Manager/Analyst).

An executive will require the fewest details and an analyst will require the most details.

The End

Based on your provided solutions, you will explain the actions you believe should be taken.

The audience will be more inclined to believe so if you include potential options with some possible outcomes.

The best way to do this is by prompting the audience to take action and demonstrating the downsides if no action is taken.

You will spend much less time if you explain why the target audience is in such a unique position to make a decision.

Out of all the different ways I’ve used to present data to my clients and managers, this framework has worked the best for me.

This was a lot, but if there’s any 1 thing I want you to take away from this…

Don't overload information.

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