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The Data Science Lifecycle: Communication
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| Data Science Lifecycle: Communication - Sketchnote by @nitya |
Pre-Lecture Quiz
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Introduction
What is Communication?
Let’s begin this lesson by defining communication. To communicate is to share or exchange information. Information can include ideas, thoughts, feelings, messages, signals, data—anything that a sender (someone sharing information) wants a receiver (someone receiving information) to understand. In this lesson, we’ll refer to senders as communicators and receivers as the audience.
Data Communication & Storytelling
When communicating, the goal is to share or exchange information. However, when communicating data, the goal isn’t just to pass along numbers to your audience. Instead, the aim is to tell a story informed by your data—effective data communication and storytelling go hand-in-hand. Your audience is more likely to remember a story you tell than a number you provide. Later in this lesson, we’ll explore ways to use storytelling to communicate your data more effectively.
Types of Communication
This lesson will cover two types of communication: One-Way Communication and Two-Way Communication.
One-way communication occurs when a sender shares information with a receiver without expecting feedback or a response. Examples of one-way communication include mass emails, news broadcasts, or television commercials promoting a product. In these cases, the sender’s goal is to deliver information, not to engage in an exchange.
Two-way communication happens when all parties act as both senders and receivers. A sender begins by sharing information, and the receiver provides feedback or a response. Two-way communication is what we typically think of as a conversation—whether in person, over the phone, on social media, or via text message.
When communicating data, you may use one-way communication (e.g., presenting at a conference or to a large group where questions won’t be asked immediately) or two-way communication (e.g., persuading stakeholders for buy-in or convincing a teammate to invest time and effort in a new initiative).
Effective Communication
Your Responsibilities as a Communicator
As a communicator, it’s your responsibility to ensure your audience understands the information you want them to take away. When communicating data, your goal isn’t just for your audience to remember numbers—it’s for them to grasp a story informed by your data. A skilled data communicator is also a skilled storyteller.
How do you tell a story with data? There are countless ways, but here are six strategies we’ll discuss in this lesson:
- Understand Your Audience, Your Channel, & Your Communication Method
- Begin with the End in Mind
- Approach It Like an Actual Story
- Use Meaningful Words & Phrases
- Use Emotion
Each strategy is explained in detail below.
1. Understand Your Audience, Your Channel & Your Communication Method
The way you communicate with family members is likely different from how you communicate with friends. You probably use different words and phrases tailored to the people you’re speaking to. The same principle applies when communicating data. Consider who your audience is, their goals, and the context they have regarding the situation you’re explaining.
You can often categorize your audience into groups. In a Harvard Business Review article, “How to Tell a Story with Data,” Dell Executive Strategist Jim Stikeleather identifies five audience categories:
- Novice: First exposure to the subject, but doesn’t want oversimplification.
- Generalist: Familiar with the topic, seeking an overview and major themes.
- Managerial: Requires actionable understanding of intricacies and interrelationships, with access to details.
- Expert: Prefers exploration and discovery over storytelling, with a focus on detailed information.
- Executive: Limited time, interested in significance and conclusions based on weighted probabilities.
These categories can guide how you present data to your audience.
Additionally, consider the channel you’re using to communicate—whether it’s a memo, email, meeting, or conference presentation. Your approach should adapt accordingly.
Understanding whether you’ll use one-way or two-way communication is also crucial. For example:
- If communicating with a Novice audience via one-way communication, you’ll need to educate them, provide context, present your data, and explain its significance. Clarity is key since they won’t be able to ask questions directly.
- If communicating with a Managerial audience via two-way communication, you may skip extensive context and dive into the data and its implications. However, you’ll need to manage timing and keep the discussion focused, as questions may arise that could derail your story.
2. Begin With The End In Mind
Starting with the end in mind means identifying your intended takeaways for your audience before you begin communicating. Being intentional about what you want your audience to learn helps you craft a coherent story. This approach works for both one-way and two-way communication.
How do you start with the end in mind? Write down your key takeaways before communicating your data. As you prepare your story, continually ask yourself, “How does this fit into the narrative I’m building?”
Be cautious—while starting with the end in mind is ideal, avoid cherry-picking data. Cherry-picking occurs when a communicator only shares data that supports their point while ignoring other data. If some of your data contradicts your intended takeaways, share it honestly and explain why you’re sticking to your story despite the conflicting evidence.
3. Approach It Like an Actual Story
Traditional stories often follow five phases: Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and Denouement—or, more simply, Context, Conflict, Climax, Closure, and Conclusion. You can use a similar structure when communicating your data and story.
Start with context to ensure your audience is on the same page. Introduce the conflict—why did you collect this data? What problem were you trying to solve? Then, present the climax—what does the data reveal? What solutions does it suggest? Follow with closure, reiterating the problem and proposed solutions. Finally, conclude by summarizing key takeaways and recommending next steps.
4. Use Meaningful Words & Phrases
Imagine you’re working on a product, and you say, “Our users take a long time to onboard onto our platform.” How long is “a long time”? An hour? A week? It’s unclear. Now imagine saying this to an audience—each person might interpret “a long time” differently.
Instead, you could say, “Our users take, on average, 3 minutes to sign up and onboard onto our platform.” This is much clearer.
When communicating data, don’t assume your audience thinks like you. Clarity is your responsibility as a communicator. If your message isn’t clear, your audience may struggle to follow, making it less likely they’ll understand your key takeaways.
Use specific, meaningful words and phrases instead of vague ones. For example:
- “We had an impressive year!”
- One person might think an impressive year means a 2%-3% revenue increase, while another might think it means a 50%-60% increase.
- “Our users’ success rates increased dramatically.”
- How much of an increase qualifies as dramatic?
- “This undertaking will require significant effort.”
- How much effort is significant?
While vague words can be useful for introductions or summaries, ensure the core of your presentation is clear.
5. Use Emotion
Emotion is a powerful tool in storytelling, especially when communicating data. Evoking emotion helps your audience empathize, increases the likelihood they’ll take action, and makes your message more memorable.
You’ve likely seen this in TV commercials—some use somber tones to emphasize their message, while others are upbeat and associate their data with positive feelings.
How can you use emotion when communicating data? Here are a few ways:
- Testimonials and Personal Stories: Collect both quantitative and qualitative data, and integrate personal stories to complement your numbers.
- Imagery: Use images to help your audience visualize the situation and connect emotionally with your data.
- Color: Different colors evoke different emotions. For example:
- Blue often conveys peace and trust.
- Green is associated with nature and the environment.
- Red suggests passion and excitement.
- Yellow evokes optimism and happiness. Be mindful that color meanings can vary across cultures.
Communication Case Study
Emerson is a Product Manager for a mobile app. Emerson notices that customers submit 42% more complaints and bug reports on weekends. Additionally, customers whose complaints go unanswered for over 48 hours are 32% more likely to rate the app 1 or 2 stars in the app store.
After conducting research, Emerson identifies two solutions to address the issue. Emerson schedules a 30-minute meeting with the three company leads to present the data and proposed solutions.
During the meeting, Emerson’s goal is to help the company leads understand that the following two solutions can improve the app’s rating, which could lead to higher revenue:
Solution 1. Hire customer service representatives to work on weekends.
Solution 2. Invest in a new customer service ticketing system that allows reps to prioritize complaints based on how long they’ve been in the queue.
In the meeting, Emerson spends:
- 5 minutes explaining why a low app store rating is problematic,
- 10 minutes detailing the research process and how trends were identified,
- 10 minutes reviewing recent customer complaints,
- and the final 5 minutes briefly covering the two potential solutions. Was this an effective way for Emerson to communicate during this meeting?
During the meeting, one company lead fixated on the 10 minutes of customer complaints that Emerson went through. After the meeting, these complaints were the only thing that this team lead remembered. Another company lead primarily focused on Emerson describing the research process. The third company lead did remember the solutions proposed by Emerson but wasn’t sure how those solutions could be implemented.
In the situation above, you can see that there was a significant gap between what Emerson wanted the team leads to take away, and what they ended up taking away from the meeting. Below is another approach that Emerson could consider.
How could Emerson improve this approach?
Context, Conflict, Climax, Closure, Conclusion
Context - Emerson could spend the first 5 minutes introducing the entire situation and making sure that the team leads understand how the problems affect metrics that are critical to the company, like revenue.
It could be laid out this way: "Currently, our app's rating in the app store is a 2.5. Ratings in the app store are critical to App Store Optimization, which impacts how many users see our app in search, and how our app is viewed to prospective users. And of course, the number of users we have is tied directly to revenue."
Conflict Emerson could then move to talk for the next 5 minutes or so on the conflict.
It could go like this: “Users submit 42% more complaints and bug reports on the weekends. Customers who submit a complaint that goes unanswered after 48 hours are 32% less likely to give our app a rating over a 2 in the app store. Improving our app's rating in the app store to a 4 would improve our visibility by 20-30%, which I project would increase revenue by 10%." Of course, Emerson should be prepared to justify these numbers.
Climax After laying the groundwork, Emerson could then move to the Climax for 5 or so minutes.
Emerson could introduce the proposed solutions, lay out how those solutions will address the issues outlined, how those solutions could be implemented into existing workflows, how much the solutions cost, what the ROI of the solutions would be, and maybe even show some screenshots or wireframes of how the solutions would look if implemented. Emerson could also share testimonials from users who took over 48 hours to have their complaint addressed, and even a testimonial from a current customer service representative within the company who has comments on the current ticketing system.
Closure Now Emerson can spend 5 minutes restating the problems faced by the company, revisit the proposed solutions, and review why those solutions are the right ones.
Conclusion Because this is a meeting with a few stakeholders where two-way communication will be used, Emerson could then plan to leave 10 minutes for questions, to make sure that anything that was confusing to the team leads could be clarified before the meeting is over.
If Emerson took approach #2, it is much more likely that the team leads will take away from the meeting exactly what Emerson intended for them to take away – that the way complaints and bugs are handled could be improved, and there are 2 solutions that could be put in place to make that improvement happen. This approach would be a much more effective approach to communicating the data, and the story, that Emerson wants to communicate.
Conclusion
Summary of main points
- To communicate is to convey or exchange information.
- When communicating data, your aim shouldn't be to simply pass along numbers to your audience. Your aim should be to communicate a story that is informed by your data.
- There are 2 types of communication, One-Way Communication (information is communicated with no intention of a response) and Two-Way Communication (information is communicated back and forth.)
- There are many strategies you can use to telling a story with your data, 5 strategies we went over are:
- Understand Your Audience, Your Medium, & Your Communication Method
- Begin with the End in Mind
- Approach it Like an Actual Story
- Use Meaningful Words & Phrases
- Use Emotion
Recommended Resources for Self Study
The Five C's of Storytelling - Articulate Persuasion
1.4 Your Responsibilities as a Communicator – Business Communication for Success (umn.edu)
How to Tell a Story with Data (hbr.org)
Two-Way Communication: 4 Tips for a More Engaged Workplace (yourthoughtpartner.com)
6 succinct steps to great data storytelling - BarnRaisers, LLC (barnraisersllc.com)
How to Tell a Story With Data | Lucidchart Blog
6 Cs of Effective Storytelling on Social Media | Cooler Insights
The Importance of Emotions In Presentations | Ethos3 - A Presentation Training and Design Agency
Data storytelling: linking emotions and rational decisions (toucantoco.com)
Emotional Advertising: How Brands Use Feelings to Get People to Buy (hubspot.com)
Choosing Colors for Your Presentation Slides | Think Outside The Slide
How To Present Data [10 Expert Tips] | ObservePoint
Microsoft Word - Persuasive Instructions.doc (tpsnva.org)
The Power of Story for Your Data (thinkhdi.com)
Common Mistakes in Data Presentation (perceptualedge.com)
Infographic: Here are 15 Common Data Fallacies to Avoid (visualcapitalist.com)
Cherry Picking: When People Ignore Evidence that They Dislike – Effectiviology
Tell Stories with Data: Communication in Data Science | by Sonali Verghese | Towards Data Science
1. Communicating Data - Communicating Data with Tableau [Book] (oreilly.com)
Post-lecture quiz
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Assignment
Disclaimer:
This document has been translated using the AI translation service Co-op Translator. While we strive for accuracy, please note that automated translations may contain errors or inaccuracies. The original document in its native language should be regarded as the authoritative source. For critical information, professional human translation is recommended. We are not responsible for any misunderstandings or misinterpretations resulting from the use of this translation.