Make Your Data Splash (post 2 of 3)

Three Steps in Three Days: Day Two

Today is day two of sharing with you 3 important steps to making data visualization impactful. Yesterday, I discussed how to identify what of your data has potential impacts and a technique to know if you have the right data..

Today, I am expanding on how to focus in on your data to how it is relevant to your company and your role by taking a systematic and intentional approach to exploration.

STEP 2. Develop a Hypothesis about Your Area of the Business

Once you know the data you are working with and have a good sense of how reliable it is, think about the business as it relates to parts you can control / influence and that aligns to an objective, goal, KPI. If you are in advertising, focus on advertising. If you are in product development, find data sources that tell you something about the customer’s needs. At Baufest, we have seen rogue projects that fail because they don’t latter up to a problem that needs to be solved or a goal. Therefore, consider a top-town and bottom-up approach simultaneously. For example: a specific goal to increasing service margin (top-down). Now, what are all the inputs to cost, offering price, fixed and variable elements that can and can’t be predicted. Do you have complete information about both the data AND the processes that lead to an outcome?

Here is a Pro-tip for putting this into action: Start with conversations. Speak with peers, use customer feedback, and gather 3 to 5 anecdotes (or more) that about how the business does operate or could operate differently, then use the data to test out those theories. Anecdotes are almost always right and finding the data to support the anecdote and affect real change is, well, a game-changer.

Tomorrow I will be sharing the third and final step of making data visualization impactful by focusing  on the biggest opportunities. Pareto chart anyone?