From Plot to Narrative
A bar chart is just a bar chart. A bar chart embedded in a clear narrative is a recommendation. The chart is a vehicle for the story — not the story itself. Below you will find the short version of one of my favorite presentations ever. The data storytelling is incredible. This is what we should try to emulate, whether we are in the boardroom, pitching our startup, or presenting in class.
The Three-Part Anatomy of a Data Story
- Setup. What's the situation? What's the data? What's at stake? This is where you frame the problem and orient the audience. Even if you've been working on the problem for three months, the audience may have last thought about it three months ago.
- Tension. What changed? What's the anomaly? What's the surprising finding? This is where the analysis earns its keep. If there's no tension, there's no story — you're just reporting numbers.
- Resolution. What's the recommendation? What's the next step? Analysis without a recommendation is reading off a screen. Always finish with what you'd do.
Take any chart you're about to present and try to write down its insight in one sentence. If you can, the chart is doing its job. If you can't, the chart is unclear or the insight is unclear — or both. If the one-sentence headline is so good that the chart is redundant, you may not even need the chart. Sometimes the sentence alone is more powerful.
The Voice That Advances a Career
The most influential analysts in any organization are not the ones with the fanciest plots. They're the ones whose plots have the clearest headlines. You can almost predict an analyst's career trajectory from how they describe their own charts in meetings. "Here's what's happening, here's why, and here's what I think we should do" is a leader's voice. "Here's a chart" is not.
You present a chart showing a 23% drop in user retention last month. A stakeholder asks: 'So what should we do?' You say 'I don't know — I just wanted to share the data.' What went wrong?