Executive Data Storytelling

Why is executive data storytelling such an important skill to master?

A recent study by The Economist Group revealed these key insights about Executives:

90% of Executives agree:

“Gaining knowledge and becoming better informed is a priority to me.

93% of Executives agree:

“I am open to new ideas and experiences.”

Executives are open to new ways of seeing and understanding data.

But there is a major problem that exists as we show up and try to deliver data stories.

1. We don’t know our executives.

2. We don’t understand executive priorities.

3. We don’t deliver data stories.

In this course you will learn how to identify and craft visual data stories and narratives that work for executives. This course will equip you with new inspiration around how to communicate with and work with your Executives and your leaders as well as provide you with tools and techniques that you can immediately use to tell more effective data stories.

Know Your Executives

The first step to deliver data stories that inspire leaders to act is to Know Your Executives. Over the years I've had the opportunity to work with Executives and leaders across hundreds of organizations. Along the way I've continued to see five common patterns emerge around how leaders operate on a daily basis. It’s the understanding of these patterns that allows us to deliver different visual narratives and data stories for different types of leaders.

In this section you will learn the five most common personas found within Executives.

1. Data Geek

2. Traveler

3. Emailer

4. Presenter

5. Old-School

Apply: Identify how your Executives like to consume data and map them to the proper personas.

Understand Executive Priorities

The second step to deliver data stories that inspire leaders to act is to Understand Executive Priorities. Oftentimes within an organization there are hundreds of requirements and metrics that Executives and leaders want in dashboards and data stories. The challenge is, how do we remove all the noise and focus on the most important priorities and questions?

In this section you will learn a simple three-part framework to help you identify exactly what your Executives care about most.

1. Questions

2. Actions

3. Results

Apply: Implement the three-part framework in your requirements and discovery process to ensure you find the most important stories in your data.

Deliver Data Stories - Introduction

The third and final step to inspire leaders to act is to Deliver Data Stories. Now that we know our Executives and we understand their priorities, we can deliver Data Stories in the Tableau platform. In the platform you are going to see a Data Story come to life that aligns to the questions, actions and results our Executives care about most.

Deliver Data Stories - Solution

In this section you will learn how to deliver Tableau data stories to each of the five Executive personas.

1. Data Geek receives a Tableau Dashboard.

2. Traveler receives a Tableau Mobile Dashboard.

3. Emailer receives a Tableau Automated Email.

4. Presenter receives a Tableau One-Click Power Point Deck.

5. Old-School receives a Tableau One-Click PDF.

Apply: Become a Data Storytelling Expert with the Data Story Academy Online Courses. Build and publish your own Executive Data Stories on Tableau Public.