Our course this contradicts everything you have learned from the data analytics community. As much as it pains me to say this, data tables are incredibly valuable and you should not overlook them in your presentations. Most members of senior management love numbers. If they can see a table that summarizes data points to clear numbers, they will be happy. Yes, bars/lines/maps/visuals do 100% give more insight, but you need to understand a simple barrier…digestion. Most senior management I have worked with struggle to look through lines and bars because they are more interested in the number itself. Can’t tell you how many meetings I have been in where I have generated a visual to show the trend and the share of each cohort to just be cut off and asked, “what is the total count for the month?” *facepalm* Why did I spend all the time making this graph? haha, it’s true though it happens too many times. So my advice to you…BUILD BOTH! Make the impressive visual but do not shy away from the basic boring table. So many tools like Tableau let you easily duplicate tabs and creating a second analysis to share on one dashboard does not take much longer. I state this so many times but as an analyst you need to learn to tell a story. If you start with the factual numbers first, you can eliminate a lot of doubt and clear questions before starting to talk about trends and insights. The best advice I can share here from my career is to remember that being a great analyst means that you can facilitate learning and discussion from your analysis. Make it easy for your audience to comprehend and then take them on a deep dive of an analysis you have conducted.

 

Happy analyzing,

Christopher Doidge