What are some effective strategies for communicating data analysis results? (2024)

Key takeaways from this article

• Tailor the message:

  Adapt your communication to the audience's expertise level, zeroing in on business implications, and end with clear steps they can act on. This makes your data talk their language.

• Focus on key insights:

  Select and emphasize 2-3 main findings from your data analysis. It helps create a concise narrative that's easier for your audience to digest and remember.

This summary is powered by AI and these experts

• Renee Peet Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) | Strategy | Innovation | Business Transformation

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  Know your audience, absolutely. And also know what you want them to do. Be able to clearly identify the 3-5 things you want your audience to take away from the presentation, and the one thing that you absolutely want them to do after seeing it.Have clear goals for "doing" for yourself and your audience that go beyond "sharing information." You are sharing information to do.... what? Make a decision? Change behavior? Invite dialog? Invite further study? If you know what you want them to do, it will help focus and clarify messaging, tone and format.

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• Dr. Priyanka Singh Ph.D. Engineering Manager - AI @ Universal AI 🧠 Linkedin Top Voice 🎙️ Generative AI Author 📖 Technical Reviewer @Packt 🤖 Building Better AI for Tomorrow 🌈

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  To effectively communicate data analysis results, it’s essential to understand your audience to tailor your message. Clear context aids comprehension, and visuals can clarify complex points and keep engagement high. Crafting a compelling story around your findings can resonate more profoundly with the audience; highlighting tangible risks and benefits aids in informed decision-making. Clarity and conciseness are paramount to avoid misunderstandings, and inviting feedback fosters a collaborative and credible environment, allowing for continuous improvement and refinement of your communication strategies.

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• Rohit Sharma Head - HR Services

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  Knowing your audience and also the purpose why you are sharing the data analytics results. What problem are you trying to solve is something that needs to be addressed. That’s why storytelling through data is such a useful skill. It’s not about just data and insights but how you weave a story around is important.

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• Sonya David Parent in Progress | Active Mentor | Comms Strategy leader | Meta’s #PassHerTheMic Participant | Part of LinkedIn's Big Minds Collective | Campaign APAC Women to Watch 2021

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  One slide, one point..you might have a lot to say, but your audience only has that much attention so whether you cut away the unnecessary, or build gradually to a single focus, never put extra data/text or charts in there just 'coz it might help'. A presentation is about your audience and your goal, not about you.

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• Nikhil Uppal Analyst || Alteryx Advance Certified Designer || Microsoft Excel || Microsoft Power BI || Alteryx || MBA || Streamlining and Automating Business Processes

  (edited)

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  Knowing our audience helps in tailoring our communication. Senior Executives may need a high level summary while technical teams might need a detailed report.

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  Effectively communicating data analysis results goes beyond choosing the appropriate medium; it also involves tailoring the message, focusing on key insights, and providing actionable recommendations. - First, tailor the message to your audience's level of technical expertise and concentrate on the business implications. - Second, highlight 2-3 major findings to offer a focused, digestible take on the data. - Lastly, always conclude with clear, actionable recommendations that guide subsequent steps. These strategies, when used in conjunction with the right medium, can significantly enhance the impact of data communication.

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• Zinzile Mhlanga If you think it can be delegated, and even if you think it can't... Tell me what you need, and I'll find a way. Not just a VA, your next strategic partner.

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  No matter what medium you choose always try to focus on the most important findings, and tell a story with your data.Also ask yourself this "What do l want my audience to do with the data results l am about to share?Once you know your goal, you can choose the medium that is most likely to help you achieve it.

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• Sanam Narula Product @ Amazon | 🚀 Follow for insights to accelerate your Product Management Career

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  It’s good to use visuals but almost always Written communication is the best. Refrain from presentations as they lead to less clarity of the actual thought and idea that you might have.

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• Abdelmalek Nouri Business Development Specialist @ Rakuten | Business Growth, Data Analytics

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  To effectively communicate data analysis results, it's crucial to focus on clarity, visualization, storytelling, audience tailoring, actionable insights, data quality, interactive tools, fostering a feedback loop, thoughtful visual design, and utilizing multiple formats.

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  The choice of how to present data is crucial. Sometimes, a straightforward text explanation can be more effective than a fancy chart, depending on your audience and message. We often invest a lot in creating compelling visualizations, but we should never lose sight of our primary objective: to effectively communicate the outcomes of our analysis. While visualizations are powerful and memorable, our ultimate goal is to tell our stories in a way that simplifies understanding and facilitates action for our stakeholders.

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  If you've been involved in preparing the data analysis, research, and presentation, you'd have a breadth and depth of knowledge about the topic you're presenting. Especially if you're passionate about it, you can go on tangents and talk about the topic all day! My recommendation is to simplify your delivery by focusing on the main objectives you're presenting that aligns with your POV and story and leave room for questions to be asked. When presenting a topic, focus on answering the question, "why should you [the audience] care?" This will help you focus on the bottom line and avoid tangents and jargon. At the same time, it'll leave room for the audience to ask about what they care about, helping you navigate the flow of the presentation.

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  I think that sometimes longer sentences are helpful as long as they are in plain language and provide the context of the data. Example:Complex Language: “The dataset exhibits a pronounced peak in Q4.”Simplified Language: “We sold the most products during the holiday season in the last three months of the year.”Explanation: Investigate the events of Q4. Did a holiday season or a major sales event contribute to the rise in sales? This contextual insight transforms mere data into a relatable story, making it easier for everyone to understand and act upon, even with a longer sentence.

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• Renee Peet Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) | Strategy | Innovation | Business Transformation

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  A couple of things to add: - Use active voice to make your language clear and simple.- Know your audience and speak to them in terms that they will understand. You might have to use technical terms with a technical audience. You can also use clear, direct language with technical terms.- Start with your end-goal in mind: what do you want your audience to do with the information you are sharing?

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• Nikhil Uppal Analyst || Alteryx Advance Certified Designer || Microsoft Excel || Microsoft Power BI || Alteryx || MBA || Streamlining and Automating Business Processes

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  I think that we should use plain everyday language, avoid jargon and explain findings in a way that, even people from Non-Data background can understand.

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• Khalilah Purnell

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  Using clear and simple language in data analysis communication is a perspective that cannot be overstated in its importance. It is a powerful tool that transcends technical and non-technical boundaries, making the insights and findings more accessible and actionable for a broader audience. Using clear and simple language in data analysis fosters inclusivity, empowers non-experts, minimizes misinterpretation, enhances collaboration, avoids assumptions, and inspires action, ensuring effective and informed decision-making.

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  An important point we often neglect.It's important to highlight and sometimes even lead with the actionable insights from an analysis.While most analysis will have clear insights, it's important to always highlight the way forward from the exercise and be clear on the expected actions to be followed after an analysis.This is what makes an analysis useful in driving a certain objectives, as opposed to getting lost in another stack of reports.

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• Charles Coleman Director of Data Science and Advanced Analytics in Retail, Healthcare | Alteryx | Tableau

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  Color is possibly the most important, non-verbal tool we have in presenting findings to an audience. Make the important things pop off the screen; leave no doubt about what your audience should take away from your analysis.The heuristic I use is four seconds. Particularly in dashboarding, I want my audience to know what we're going to focus on within four seconds of laying eyes on it. Any more than that, and I risk having to explain *what* they're looking at, rather than *why* they're looking at it.

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  Your insights should fit the purpose for which they’re crafted and be as actionable as possible. For example, if you’re analysing customer behaviour or shopping patterns:- which metrics are you communicating the results against?- can your insights be useful to improve the outcomes?- are the metrics repeatable to do a month on month analysis?

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• Khalilah Purnell

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  Focus on the vital findings. Highlight insights aligned with your research question, hypothesis, or problem. Summaries, tables, visuals, and visual cues like colors or fonts can emphasize key data, making it more accessible and impactful.

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  The only way to come up with actionable insights is to highlight key data points from your analysis. Using timelines for the action items can help in presentation to senior management.

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• (edited)

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  Creating a storyline when presenting data analysis helps. For an average audience, stories are easy to follow. Try to set a background as to why you conducted the analysis and explain its significance in their lives. It also helps to highlight its impact on the organizations' goals.

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  We can turn raw data into useful insights by translating it into straightforward information and tying it to real-world scenarios. Swap out data jargon for plain language. Say 'most common' instead of 'mode.' Explain 'standard deviation' as 'high or low risk' in the financial or risk context. Tie terms to actual events and situations. For example, instead of saying 'peak in Q4,' say 'most sales during holidays.' Replace 'decline in Q3 traffic' with 'fewer summer visits.' Clear language and context make data relatable and understandable.

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• Christen Ng Chief Technology Officer | People-First Leader Leveraging Technology + Data Strategy for Collective Impact in Nonprofits | Human Experience Enthusiast

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  I enjoy reading this thread and all the advice is on point. Yours stood out to me as I was going to post that emotion is not a bad thing; but ensure it is appropriate for the audience. Humor, empathy.. using the angle of WIIFM (what’s in it for me) helps make a generally “intimidating” domain of data and stats more accessible. When people are comfortable to ask questions (I’ve seen reticence a lot) that means you’ve done a good job of inviting everyone into the space so it becomes more of a dialogue then report out. Establishing common language from the start helps. And always make sure to pause frequently to solicit wonderings. I’ve also found that leveraging benchmarks in the market helps ground findings with an anchor. And.. have fun!

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• Charles Coleman Director of Data Science and Advanced Analytics in Retail, Healthcare | Alteryx | Tableau

  (edited)

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  One thing I try to do in every analytics project is to find out what their KPIs'/metrics' thresholds are, and what should happen when they're crossed. For example, is it (in retail) that a SKU's profitability drops by 10% year-over-year, or (in healthcare) that a patient's labs come back outside of the normal range? From there, the next questions for the consumer of this information are: Q1) What should happen when that threshold is crossed?Q2) And how important is this, relative to other data we may be showing (should it be front and center?) Those actions (Q1) are what you're calling out, and their importance (Q2) governs how you'll call them out.

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• Jayasankaran Baskaran Data Scientist || Microsoft Certified Power BI Data Analyst Associate || IIT Madras

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  I agree with these excellent points. Just to add: If we have evaluated few options before arriving at a recommendation, then sometimes depending on the intent and audience, it maybe necessary or just helpful to present a high-level comparison of all the options and say why the recommended one is better among them.

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• Khalilah Purnell

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  Make recommendations and call to actionYour data analysis results may not be the end of your communication, but the beginning of a conversation or a collaboration with your audience. You need to make recommendations and call to action based on your data, and invite your audience to take the next steps or provide feedback. You can use persuasive language, such as verbs, adjectives, or modalities, to express your opinions, suggestions, or requests. You can also use evidence, such as facts, figures, or testimonials, to support your claims, and use emotion, such as humor, empathy, or urgency, to motivate your audience.

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  I feel it's best to keep-it-simple. Gone are the days when anyone had the patience to go through 40 slides, full of text and charts... as long as we get the core message out and in a WIIFM format, the audience stays engaged and takes away what's most relevant to them.

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• Varun Rajpal Consultant II - Analytics || Data Science ||Machine Learning || Deep Learning || Microsoft Certified Data Analyst ||

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  Numerous valuable points have been made at various levels, yet these 5 points sum up for me:1. Storytelling: A compelling storytelling that thoroughly explains the findings & focuses on the key insights.2. Data Visualization: Transforms data into visual insights, facilitating rapid comprehension and empowering data-driven decision-making, while also engaging business leaders with a clear narrative.3. Critical Thinking/ Asking the right Qs: Identifying diff. trends,patterns & asking the right ques. is vital for data analysts & helps in evaluating the problems from all angles.4. Know ur audience: Data must be shared in a simplistic way for business stakeholders. 5. Clarity & Brevity: Present key findings without overwhelming stakeholders

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• Danie Flemming Growing Your Retail Gross Profit with Power BI

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  At the sharing stage you be responsible to provide solutions to or insights into data.1)audience is important , even before you start building the solution (are they high level decision makers or operationally looking for root cause analyses )2)Given the above you need to present the insight/ solution to a problem that will make a real difference on which action can be taken and results achieved3)Talk the language of the audience(verbally, visually and in their timeframe)4)no jargon5)Ask open ended questions that lead them to the start of your narative5)tell a story that present clear solution to clear problem. Don't write a Hollywood screenplay6)again ask questions to clarify if they understand and how they think this will help.

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• • Report contribution
  Effective communication of data analysis results involves crafting a clear narrative. Begin with the key findings upfront, followed by visuals like charts or graphs to support these points. Ensure simplicity and clarity in visuals, avoiding clutter. Tailor the message to the audience’s knowledge level, focusing on insights over technicalities. Utilize a structured format, guiding the audience through the story your data tells, and always conclude with actionable recommendations derived from the analysis, ensuring the data's practical application is evident.

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• Julie Alig, Ph.D. Advanced Analytics for Business Transitions | Precision Forecasting | AI For Business | Data-Driven Due Diligence | Business Strategy | Enhanced Quality of Earnings | Expert Witness | Fulbright Scholar

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  Be willing to include analyses that go against what you might be recommending. If you only present the best-case outcomes, or the most positive spin analysis, you're likely to lose the confidence of your audience. Transparency should be a given, and when framed correctly, strongly supports your final recommendations.

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