Will Crtichlow talks about one of my favourite topics, reports and data visualization.
So, what is the point of reports?
- To find answers
- To cause change
- To build a relationship
- Finding answers. Reports to find solutions to problems. Digging into data and showing actionable insight is the sexyest thing in a report.
- Causing Change. Will recommends a data visualization source. Tufte is one of the gurus of data visualization. Tips:
- Spark links in Excel
- Small Multiple data points
- Stacked data is difficult to comprehend
- Boss reports: Quantitative scale
- Conclusions: Remove chartjunk, story or analysis, long terms trends, create context with data visualisation (don’t use pie charts)
- Build a relationship.
Ranking reports are good for diagnosing issues not for monthly reporting. Benchmarking is the key for this kind of reporting, search engine visibility as a metric, Richard Baxter’s post.
Tips:
- Use emails no reports for building relationships
- Give away the puch line in the title and main paragraph. The rest of the report might not be read
- Use colour coding to show progress in projects
What would Will like to do?
- Monitoring, alerts & data warehousing
- Data presentation skills
- Getting better at: weekly (actions, blockers, changes), Monthly( summary, efforts, etc)
Q & A
What tool would you have ideally that doesn’t exist yet? New referrers, new keywords.
