Example Reflections- Storytelling

Challenge

My position requires managing multiple business analysts who work with partner companies to create  business performance reports. These reports contains multiple performance indicators and are circulated  company wide. These reports are not only one of the most important dataset of our customers, the final  report also requires rigorous amount of quality checks to ensure information is validated.

Majority of these reports were developed 4-5 years back and also go through multiple changes (to  address relevance of performance indicators or methodology) over period of time without changing the  overall user interface.

In addition to the content change, sometimes the analyst who manages these reports also change,  because of leaving the job or change in department. These legacy reports were developed on Microsoft  Excel platform.

For one of the engagement, my team had seen multiple transition of report owner and during recent  times, the report owner also faced poor quality of the information. In addition, the Data & Analytics space  is progressing rapidly and most of my engagements had already shifted to more advances reporting  platforms like Tableau.

Selection

While the functional and process issues were there, I believed there was a need to change the mindset of  customer, from traditional platform to more advanced reporting tool. In order to do so, we not only have to  describe the benefits of the new tools, we also need to provide real life case studies that the customer  can relate to. This brings to my selection of using Storytelling as a tool for the challenge.

Application

During the root cause analysis activity of quality issues of the report, we formed a team of analysts,  customer, business owner and operations. We figured out that in addition to old report update process  which is prone for errors, the visualizations (user interface to navigate) are old, provide limited  functionality and very little deep dive to fully utilize all the data present.

I decided to put together a story of how all the information that is present needs to be harvested for  adequate decision making process, which was lacking in the earlier process. In addition, how the  advanced visual graphics can provide better insights into the market dynamics, competitor environment  as well company performance.

Post forming the key value propositions, we decided to put together a pilot showcase session with our  customer. The session was broke into 2-3 sections of traditional versus new approach, benefits as well as  savings in time (getting reports earlier) and costs. We also provided utilities of tool and how can they see  the info on mobile, tablet and other devices.

Post the session, we sent a pilot case study report in the tableau tool (with dummy information) for them  to have a user experience. We also connected them with other happy users to share the experiences and  transition.

Above all, we provided them the assurance that we will run both the process (Excel and Tableau) in  parallel for 2 cycles that will help them cross check traditional report for important information.

This whole activity had not only improved our customer connect and collaboration, we also helped them  to transition to advanced technology and informed decision making.

Insights

In my opinion, the situation was not superficial of quality problem with information, I think it is about  resistant to change, because there is a comfort zone to the legacy way of doing things and this comfort  zone is created as it gave results which are accurate and assured.

Especially in the avenue of tools and upgradation, this resistance is even more. We have to sell the story  of not the tool but the benefits and value proposition of how it helps make the job better compared to  earlier. It is not about the features of the tool, it is about why those are important and how can utilize it.

Approach

Thinking retrospectively, I think this was more reactionary approach when we faced a problem and tried  to put a 360 solution by telling a story of happy customer who probably had a similar issue. However,  there might be many more such customers who have not had faced quality challenge and been untapped  to upgrade. It also means there I have to have a more proactive approach to reach out.

In addition to customer reach, I think organizing a workshop at the customer site, that have agile  meetings with different stakeholders will also provide benefit and will have potential include more  information which is relevant to different business divisions.

