Challenge and Selection

I am an analytics professional who works very closely with non-analytic professionals.  In my role, I not  only analyze data, but I also use the results of my analyses to tell a story.  Hence, storytelling is a tool in  my toolbox that I use on a regular basis so that I can connect with my business customers.  When I’m  working with my business customers, they are very equipped with business knowledge, but are lacking  in analytical knowledge.  They certainly do not love numbers like I do, nor do they want to stare at  numbers.  They essentially want to know what ‘story’ the data is telling them that aids them in making  business decisions, and that is where I come in.  I am responsible for finding a way to visualize the data  and present it most effectively.

Application

In one project, I was tasked with redeveloping a scorecard that would assess the risk of our customers  and then getting approval from my business customers.  Redeveloping a statistical scorecard is very  structured and highly complex from an analytical standpoint, and so I could not take the initial results to  my business customers, because it would not tell a story they could understand.  I first needed to decide  on how I was going to present the results to them, and then had to settle on the right visualization tool  that would allow me to tell the story in the most succinct way.

I settled in on using a visualization tool that graphically showed the differences between the current  scorecard and the new scorecard.  The graphs, charts, and visuals depicted the main differences  between the two scorecards and the impact on the business.  It allowed my business customers to fully  understand the important changes without needing to understand the numbers behind the scorecards  and make an informed decision on how to proceed.  The story I told was visually appealing and yet  simplistic in nature.

Insight and Approach

The insight I gained from this project was that being a good storyteller is not easy, yet it can be highly  effective, especially when you are working with others with different backgrounds and experiences.  I  also realized how important it is to tell a story that is easily understood, because that is how you get  true buy-in from the stakeholders.

After the meeting with the business customers, one came up to me and mentioned how easy it was  from them to understood the story that I told and he thanked me for telling the story from a business  customer point of view.  Looking back at this project and after taking this course, I now see ways I could  have used storytelling in a new way, as I would have asked for my business customers’ expectations  ahead of time to be completely sure I was telling the story properly.

