In a world where it feels like data has reached saturation point, how do you decide what matters?
The ability to tell stories with the data that matters is only going to become more critical. When everyone is time poor and feels like they’re drowning in data, reducing the time to insight is essential. GenAI tools will only get you so far, but what’s missing is the contextual information about your business, customers or stakeholders. It’s also about being able think about “where next” or “so what”, which is where the human brain still adds value. Good data storytelling can persuade, inform and influence, but it’s also a skill in itself.
At CACI, we support our clients with projects that improve their democratisation of data and speed to insight. Our experience in dealing with an array of data across a variety of industries has led to us becoming masters of data-led storytelling. In this blog, we’ll outline what data storytelling is and why it should matter to your organisation.
What is data storytelling?
Data storytelling is the ability to set up and frame your data insights in a way that is engaging, compelling and impactful. It’s more than just choosing the right chart or visual to display your data. It provides a structured explanation that gives context, guiding the audience through what the data means and why it matters.
With well-executed data storytelling, your stakeholders will be able to understand the reasons behind your key insights, what the implications are, and take appropriate action off the back of your narrative.
Benefits of data storytelling
At CACI, we’ve identified some clear benefits to applying data storytelling when talking to both clients and colleagues:
- Providing clarity and focussing attention
- Highlighting the important trends, themes or data points that need bringing to attention
- Ensuring that the audience knows what the key points are and the actions that should be taken
- Considering the business context behind decisions being made.
- Reinforcement of key information
- Details are more likely to be retained if they’re delivered in a story format, which allows for repetition and reinforcement of key messages.
- In setting up the context, showing the key data points behind decision points followed by the recommended action can act as powerful reminders of the “why”.
- Boost investment in the salient points and improve resonance
- Storytelling formats are more likely to get audience buy-in if that audience can understand how insights were formed and how the decisions from these insights have been (or should be) made.
Should I use a data storytelling framework?
Using a data storytelling framework ensures readers of all technical levels can make sense of the data presented to them, understand the implications, and how to move forward by turning numbers into narrative.
Data storytelling process
The essential elements of the data storytelling process are:
Understanding that data is fundamental
Understanding your data is essential – are there outliers, for example? Is your dataset robust? You need to develop familiarity with your data in order to think about the reasons behind any trends or changes you are seeing.
The profiles of the data, the trends and the outliers are why your audience is going to care when you deliver your story. The stronger your understanding of it, the clearer your message will become, and the passion with which your story will resonate.
Visuals enhance data accessibility and reduce time to insight
Representing data visually is key to getting your message across, however it relies on good choices. Does the visual draw out the right elements that you want to draw attention to? Is it easy to understand?
You can shortcut through a thousand datapoints with a well-constructed visual. It may take a lot of investment in advance to get that right, but the payoff comes when your audience understands and sees the impact straight away.
Narrative helps to sew it all together
What is the important business context you need to include? Are there any hypotheses that you are looking to validate or debunk? Why are you doing this analysis in the first place and what are you looking to achieve?
A story with data is still a story, and every story has a narrative flow. The skill comes in working out how to drip feed the data in and using it to enhance the narrative devices (plot points).
The “So what”?
What are the actions or recommendations that can be taken off the back of your insights? What are the implications of your results and what should your audience change after seeing your findings?
Any data story should build up to an action – the key purpose of using storytelling devices is to build persuasion and conviction – so ensure that this is how your story finishes (or calls back to an initial statement.
How CACI can help
If you’re thinking about communicating data with anyone you need to think about the story. Whether it’s customers, internal stakeholders, clients or colleagues, you need to apply these narrative devices and skills.
CACI is here to help. Contact us today to find out how you can make the most of your data by applying the right data storytelling techniques.
Stay tuned for an upcoming blog post from Mark Edwards and Sophie Williams who will bring their expert lens on real-time examples where this has been successful.