Other posts in this series:
Data Storytelling – Introduction
1. The SETUP
2. The STORY
3. The SUGGESTION
You should always set up your data story before you dive into your deep analysis and supporting arguments. The SETUP portion of your data story should focus on accomplishing the following goals:
- Capture the attention of your audience
- Size up the impact of your analysis
- Introduce your thesis
Real World Setup.
It’s the end of March in the year 2020 at the time of this writing. Globally, the world is facing an actual pandemic with SARS-CoV-2 commonly referred to as Coronavirus. There have been tens of thousands of deaths at this point throughout the world and it’s anticipated that number to grow significantly throughout the rest of spring and into summer. If no change in human behavior is made, then millions if not tens of millions of people will succumb to this pandemic. Something must be done to limit the loss of human life.
Attention has been captured.
Public leadership have faced and continue to face a massive challenge today in trying to save lives of individuals that will require medical intervention to overcome this illness. They captured our attention by talking about the impact of a severe infectious disease.
Sizing the impact.
In this extreme case, the world’s entire population are at risk of infection. World leaders have segmented the human population into 3 primary categories
- Limited to Moderate: 80% of people will suffer symptoms that will not require more than rest at home and flu-like symptoms
- Severe: 17% of people will suffer severe flu-like symptoms and potentially need medical care to overcome
- Critical: 3% of the population will require hospitalization and medical intervention
The analysis has highlighted the scope within the entire population and given some context to how that population is segmented.The focus of the analysis is on protecting that 20% of people that will be severely and critically impacted from the virus.
Introduce Thesis.
Because of the population impacted and the potential loss of life, world leaders have enacted ‘social distancing’ and asking that people to limit travel, avoid gathering in groups of 10 or more, restrict trips to stores, and schools have been cancelled requiring students to learn at home. This preventative measure is intended to ‘flatten the curve’ of the pandemic.
Application in Business.
You can see the structure being applied by our world leaders and the framework established is sound – before you can convince people to change behaviors, you have to set up the problem in a way that’s compelling and meaningful. The likelihood of your analysis truly influencing change is low if your data is insignificant in size or the potential impact is low on your customer audiences.
While you likely aren’t facing a world pandemic, you are looking at data regarding user experiences for your customers that are sub-optimal. It is your job to find those challenging areas in the experience through data analysis and surface those insights. Build a compelling setup – put it in perspective by sizing your audience and assert a bold thesis statement. Once you’ve done that, you’re in position to support that thesis through The STORY.
READ NEXT: Data Storytelling – Part 2 – The STORY
[author][author_image timthumb=’on’]https://33sticks.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/3740ad70-5e69-42ad-98a9-d5ad821842b0.png[/author_image] [author_info]Bryant joins 33 sticks with 15 years of software consulting, advertising agency, education instruction and leadership experience. His passion is for elevating and leading people in all aspects of his life both professionally and personally. He’s based out of Salt Lake City, UT.
[/author_info] [/author]
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