Telling a story with your data and Power BI

As a data analyst, all our work starts and ends with a story. Now, storytelling with data is a skill that each data professional needs to master. Otherwise, it will a missing link in delivery insights to the executives, the management and other stakeholders.
   

WHY STORIES MATTER?

When you tell a story, you spark a connection.
That is how humans have communicated since the beginning of time —by telling stories.

WHAT IS STORY? 

A story is an EXPERIENCE of human transformation. Stories are HUMAN. Stories MUST have People; Your data is NOT HUMAN. A story is NOT a process and things you do. It’s not marketing buzzwords. Stories are a much simpler thing.

1)      CONNECT: with another human being. In a world where people are overwhelmed with information. Our brains and constantly trying to filter through the noise.

Your ability to open the door, get into the brain and in the mind of someone else very, very powerful.

2)      TRANSFER KNOWLEDGE: in a way that STICKS.

3)      WINS HEARTS AND MINDS:  Way to influence what people THINK, FEEL and DO.  Stories win hearts and minds change what people do.

DATA IS INERT

The problem that we have with data, is the data is fundamentally inert, and has no real meaning or value until you give it meaning and value. Storytelling is the most powerful way to do that.
Effective storytelling creates emotional and intellectual engagement like no other form of presentation.

STORIES & SCIENCE

Take a quick look at what happens in the brains of people that are suffering through a boring day of with meetings and emails. 

2 parts of the brain are activated.

1)      Broca’s area for Language Processing and Speech and

2)      other is Wernicke Area for Language Comprehension. Other parts of Brain is completely shut down and does not stick to long-term memory. 

However, IT professionals and Students become accustomed to.

It’s not the Brain’s preferred state. 

What we know from brain scans, and other research is that when a story gets told, the brain lights up. Brain suddenly becomes very much like the brain of a person in physical motion. New Brain is the parts that are associated with physical motion like moving, running, feeling, actually being sensory.

Visual Analytics

A visualization and icons are merely a vehicle. Actions require storytelling resides in short-time memory. Emotions and benefits are deep inside long-term memory. 

WHEN DATA IS USEFUL

The data is ONLY useful when we can easily ACCESS it, UNDERSTAND it and take ACTION from the data.

5 TIPS FOR DATA VISUALIZATION

1.       Always ask your data and apply the SO WHAT Test.

2.       Context, Context, and Context.
If we demonstrate a data story to the IT department, the Finance department may could not understand it completely. Therefore, while designing data story always keep in mind of the audience that you are targeting.

3.       Also, show trends.

4.       Always choose Right Visuals.

5.       Make your Visuals spacious and planned.

WHAT ENTAILS IN A BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE PROJECT.

Working with data and business Intelligent projects typically require huge effort and time. You can visualize it is as an Iceberg.

1. Find – not always available. May have to talk to another vendor who is managing the client data.

2. Access – PBI has many connectors and you can create your own connector.

3. Clean- You have to clean it which is very important of data project. 

4. Model – make your data model and data can come from different data sources.

5. Calculations - based on your data model, you develop DAX calculations. 

6. Visuals - Create the Visuals based on business requirements.

7. Branding and Design: (most important aspect) – Make dashboards and reports beautiful and appealing.

However only 20% matters for the audience or the clients i.e. VISUALS and BRANDING & DESIGNS

DATA STORIES

Power BI team has created an amazing data stories that can use for your own data stories.

1.       Global Super Stores
https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Data-Stories-Gallery/Global-Super-Store/m-p/627564

This dashboard provides a 360-degree view of overall store sales performance. Strategic users can use it to quickly check KPIs with respect to different attributes.

This is easy to understand, clean and very powerful dashboard.

2.       Climate Change is real
https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Data-Stories-Gallery/Climate-Change-is-Real/m-p/348634

The facts have been presented time and again, year after year, for decades and yet there is still an astounding level of willful ignorance and inaction from the people who should be doing the most to protect us and every other living thing on this planet. Here are the facts, one more time.

The dashboard uses multiple pages, and leverage bookmarks to create a navigation experience through independent topics. The dashboard has a storyline strong. The bookmarks feature was of great help in this case. It kept the story alive and also made navigation easy.

3.       Mastering Your Productivity
https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Data-Stories-Gallery/Mastering-Your-Productivity-in-2017-Survey-by-Levo-and-Microsoft/m-p/115410

The Microsoft Office team recently partnered with Levo, a network for millennials in the workplace to help navigate their career paths, to poll 1,500 community members to find out more about their productivity habits and challenges for the “Mastering your productivity in 2017” survey. The Office team was looking for an engaging way to share Levo’s findings with the media – one approach they took was to use Microsoft Power BI to produce an interactive and compelling report from the data.

4.       Sales Summary

This dashboard shows all the US Sales for based on total sales, total units sold, unique orders and average. The donuts charts provide different metrics for the audience.

The slicer on the top helps sales and key stakeholders’ years as well as by months. The Dashboard used icons and easy to read the title which makes it more impactful.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1.       Does your dashboard lead to take some action?

2.       Have your users learned something new from your data?

3.       Do your users understand it in 30 seconds?  

References:

1.       eDX Course Analytics Storytelling for Impact

2.       curbal.com presentation on storytelling. Source