The final chapter of exercises focuses on how to apply the storytelling with data lessons at work. You’ve encountered a good amount of this guidance already and I encourage you to refer back to the practice at work exercises throughout this book when facing a specific project: the initial exercise in this chapter will help you do just that.

Additionally, you’ll find guidance for further integrating the storytelling with data process into your and your colleagues’ day-to-day work. This will help you examine and practice the totality of the lessons we’ve covered over the course of SWD and this book. You’ll be provided with resources and guides for facilitating group learning and discussion and assessment rubrics that can be used to evaluate your own or others’ work. We’ll review the important role of feedback and how to best give and receive it, as well as setting—and helping others set—good goals for continuing to improve your data storytelling skills. There is no such thing as an “expert” in this space; regardless of skill level, there is always room for further growth. We can all continue to refine our abilities and become more nuanced in how we communicate with data.

Awesome work completing the exercises so far (and if you haven’t completed them all, that’s okay—it means you have more to go back to!). Next, let’s practice some more at work!

To be helpful, let’s first review some ideas for setting you and your team up for success.

Exercise 9.1: create your plan of attack

You’ve seen a number of practice at work exercises already in Chapters 1- 6. You’ll find all of these listed below. When facing a project where you need to communicate with data or present a story, scan through this list. Determine what combination of exercises will work best for your needs, then complete them!

Exercise 9.2: set good goals

I am a huge proponent of goal setting. When you articulate something you would like to happen and then plan the steps you can take to make it so, that thing is simply more likely to be accomplished! Setting good goals is one way to help ensure ongoing focus on further developing and honing your data storytelling skills.

At its core, the way to do this is simple. Isolate the skill or aspect of your work you want to advance. Then list the specific actions you can undertake to do it. Create a sense of urgency by making the actions time sensitive. Post this list somewhere you can see it for a regular reminder. Share with a manager or colleague to create additional accountability. If you’re like me, the feeling of being able to check off completed things that lead you closer to your goal is super gratifying. Even more powerful is how these actions help you refine your skills and increase your expertise as you accomplish your initial goals and set increasingly ambitious ones.

If you crave a more specific structure for goal setting, I’ll walk you through one momentarily. First, a caveat that if you have a current process that works, I encourage you to continue to use it. At storytelling with data, I set annual big-picture goals for the company. On a quarterly basis, all individuals (including me) follow a goal-setting and assessment framework that I learned at Google. I’ll outline our process in case useful as you are setting—or helping your team set—goals.

We document and measure our quarterly Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) to maintain focus and accountability on goals that support the business. The objectives define what the individual wants to accomplish. These should be significant and communicate action. The key results describe how the given objective will be met. Key results should be aggressive yet realistic, measurable, limited in number, and time-bound (with target frequency or completion date). Individuals typically have 3-5 objectives for the quarter, each supported with 2-3 key results. For illustration, here is an example objective and associated key results:

OBJECTIVE: Thoughtfully integrate story into my presentation of pilot program XYZ, gaining approval for the resources needed to officialize and expand the program.

• KEY RESULT 1: Complete SWD: let’s practice! exercises 1.17, 1.20, 1.21, 1.23, 1.24, 6.12, and 6.14 for two different projects by Jan 31st.
• KEY RESULT 2: Plan and create separate materials by Jan 15th optimized for the given setting: live presentation and email summary. Solicit and incorporate feedback from Key Stakeholder A by Jan 31st.
• KEY RESULT 3: Give three practice presentations this quarter to colleagues and integrate their feedback to improve my content, flow, and delivery style.

Once an individual’s OKRs are finalized, we publish and make them available to the broader team. This sort of transparency around what we’re each trying to accomplish increases everyone’s odds for success.

About a week after each quarter, we review and grade the past quarter’s OKRs. The reflection piece is helpful both to pause and celebrate successes as well as evaluate where not as much progress as planned was made. Grading—one of the most important steps in OKRs—takes this part of the process a step further. We rate ours on a simple 0-10 scale, with zero indicating no progress and 10 indicating the key result was completely achieved (for example, if the key result was to create 12 graphs with a new tool you’re learning and you created 12, you score 10; if you created 6, you score 5, and so on).

I find assigning a number helps us each be honest with ourselves and ensures adequate accountability. It’s easy to say, “I could have done more.” But when I score myself a zero or two (for example), that causes a different level of introspection: why didn’t I do more? Did priorities change and is that okay? Or if not, what’s keeping me from doing it? How do I change that in the future? I have these conversations with myself (and my husband, who also used to work at Google and helps keep me accountable!) about my own OKRs and with the individuals on my team about theirs. We aggregate each objective score by averaging the scores of the key results for that objective. Averaging the respective objective scores gives a summary for the overall quarter. In sum, reviewing the prior quarter’s OKRs and corresponding scores helps drive really useful conversations around where things are going well, competing priorities, challenges, and potential solutions. All of that then feeds into the next OKR setting process for the current quarter and we do it all over again.

I credit the OKR process as having helped me personally continue to improve my skills and create and expand a successful business. I appreciate the disciplined thinking it enforces and the way it officializes accountability. It establishes indicators for measuring progress: at any point, we each know how far along we are, where we’re missing what we set out to do, and where we’re being successful. As my team has grown, it also helps ensure everyone knows what is important and can align their individual objectives so we are all working towards the same goal.

Your turn! What is a specific goal you have related to cultivating your skills for effectively visualizing or communicating with data? Write it down. Next, identify 2-3 key results that will help you achieve this objective. Discuss it with your manager. Post it somewhere you will regularly see it. Congrats, you’ve just written your first OKR. Next, complete it!

For more on goal setting in general and the OKR process in particular, check out Episode 13 of the storytelling with data podcast (storytellingwithdata.com/podcast), which focuses on goal setting.

Exercise 9.3: give & receive effective feedback

Getting feedback and iterating is an incredibly important part of the process for evolving our skills. We all know this. Yet it can be understandably difficult to open yourself up to critique. When receiving feedback, it’s easy to become defensive rather than really listen and absorb. Here are a few thoughts related to this to help you get—and give—more effective feedback. The next time you find yourself in need of input, refer to the following.

Determine who to ask. Spend some time thinking about who will be well positioned to give you feedback based on your specific needs. We often think first of someone who is familiar with the situation, but pause to reflect on what type of feedback will serve you best. Lack of context can be a good thing because it ensures a totally fresh perspective. This can be especially useful if your audience isn’t close to the work you are doing, as it will help point out inaccessible language, assumptions you may unknowingly be making, unfamiliar types of visualizations, or other issues that could inhibit successful communication. That said, expert feedback is sometimes warranted. This can be useful, for example, when facing a technical audience and needing to make sure you’re well prepared for anticipated scrutiny, or when some level of context is necessary in order to offer useful feedback.

Time it right. This temporal aspect is important both for you as well as for the people you ask to spend time providing feedback. When it comes to timing for you—the earlier in the process you can get input, often the better. At this point you’ve put in less effort, which means you’re less attached to a particular path or output and can more easily change directions. Particularly if you have strongly opinionated stakeholders, starting the process of feedback early on can help reduce iterations over the course of a project. That said, there will be different aspects of the work that people can better evaluate in a completed form compared to early stage (something mocked up or hand-drawn, for example), so getting feedback at multiple points in the process can be helpful for highly critical projects. When it comes to timing from the critiquer’s standpoint: be respectful of their schedule and try to time your requests for feedback at points that are convenient for them. If you find it difficult to get someone’s feedback when you need it, set up time to do this live, where you can review and get the needed input over the course of a meeting.Be appreciative towards those who provide you feedback.

Be clear on the focus. Do you want to understand if the graph is easy to read, if your point comes across efficiently, or something else? Be as specific as you can about where you need input so that you get useful feedback in the right places. Consider as part of this whether it will be helpful to share the context of who the audience is, what they care about, or what knowledge they have. It can also be useful to convey what constraints you faced as part of the process—or what constraints you will face for incorporating feedback. For example, if it’s late in the game and you just need a second opinion on whether something works, you can make this clear: “Tell me what you think of this. I have to send it out today, so I’m looking for anything that’s unclear, or issues I can hopefully resolve quickly so I can meet my 5 p.m. deadline. Given that, what reactions can you share?” On the other hand, if you have ample time, you can be broad in your request for feedback: “Really, everything is fair game. I’m trying to understand broadly what’s working well and how I might further refine.”

Listen, don’t talk. When someone raises a point of constructive criticism, it is natural to want to respond and justify your decision with all the reasons you approached something the way you did. Refrain from doing this, as it may shut down the conversation. Instead, listen with an open mind and without judging the feedback. Acknowledge that you’ve heard. Take notes. Encourage the person giving the feedback to keep talking. Ask probing questions to better understand this alternative point of view. If needed to help drive the conversation, refer to the following questions.

After listening: ask questions. If you need more feedback after you’ve listened, use the following discussion prompters.

• Where do your eyes go first on this page?
• What is the main takeaway or message?
• Talk me through how you process the graph: what do you pay attention to first? Next?
• Are there things you would have done differently? Why?
• Is anything distracting from the message?
• Set it aside. Can you tell me the main point or story? What else do you remember?

Weigh the input you receive. Not all feedback is equal and you will sometimes receive bad advice. Who it is coming from will typically be the dictating factor for whether it must be followed or can be ignored. That said, if you find you’re being met with resistance, step back and really try to take any feelings or attachment to what you’ve created out of it to figure out what’s not working. If you’re unsure about the feedback you’ve received, seek another opinion. If this backs up the first, don’t assume the issue sits with those providing feedback—assume it’s something about the design. Take time to understand this so you can identify and address the root issue.

Provide good feedback to others. Getting good at giving feedback can have positive benefits for framing the feedback you’d like from others. It can also help you sharpen your thinking in ways that ultimately improve your own work. Refrain from dogmatically identifying aspects as right or wrong or good or bad. When giving feedback, be thoughtful about how you frame it: the person likely spent time creating what they are sharing with you and they are putting themselves in a position of vulnerability when they ask for feedback. They also probably faced constraints to which you don’t have visibility. Ask them to be clear on what feedback they want so you can direct your comments accordingly. Always make the feedback about the work, not the person. Before offering ideas for changes, point out what is executed well. On this note, I’ve heard of one team’s approach for giving each other feedback is by completing the following sentences: “I like…,” “I have questions about…,” and finally, “I’d suggest…” Another similar feedback framework is analyze-discuss-suggest, where you start by analyzing the graph or slide or presentation. After you’ve spent time doing so, discuss. Only after all of that do you make suggestions.

Impromptu input can be helpful, too. While sometimes the process of getting feedback is formalized—for example, one of the ideas in forthcoming Exercise 9.4 is to organize a group feedback session—that won’t always be the case. When you find yourself wondering whether something works, print it out or have a colleague peer over your shoulder at your computer and share their thoughts. You can pull ideas from this exercise in these more impromptu scenarios, too. Get input from others to iterate and refine your work from good to great!

Beyond seeking feedback for your own work, there are steps that can be taken to help build a culture where feedback is part of the norm for your broader team or organization. We’ll talk more about this in the next exercise.

Exercise 9.4: cultivate a feedback culture

As we’ve discussed, getting input from others is hugely important to understand what is working and when further iteration is warranted as you hone your data storytelling skills. Creating an open culture where feedback is part of the norm across your team or organization is a critical part of this—and often means taking intentional steps to cultivate.

Simply telling people they need to solicit or provide feedback likely isn’t enough to create the right sort of enriching environment. At work, stakes are often high. This sometimes causes individuals to be hesitant to admit they need feedback. If the culture isn’t right or the feedback isn’t delivered well, it can be taken as a personal attack rather than constructive criticism—which can be more detrimental than beneficial. That said, if you find yourself or your team facing challenges in this area, there are plenty of things you can do to shift the culture and help people practice and develop confidence when it comes to giving and receiving feedback. Here are a few ideas:

• Introduce “present & discuss” time in your regular team meeting. Reserve ten minutes of a recurring team meeting for a team member to present something they are working on or have recently completed. Then have a conversation where each person shares a positive point about the work and a suggestion for further improvement. Rotate who shares each time.
• Assign “feedback buddies.” Pair up people on your team (or across teams) and set expectations around at what points in a project people should seek and provide feedback, or with what frequency over a given time period (for example, twice weekly over a 1-month period). Managers can help hold people accountable by asking about the feedback received and incorporated during one-on-ones or project updates. After a predetermined amount of time (a month or a quarter), shuffle the partners. This can help forge stronger relationships among your team or across teams and also integrate regular feedback into the process.
• Hold a feedback “speed dating” session. Invite those who have a specific graph or slide on which they’d like feedback. Instruct them to print out a copy and bring it with them to the session. Organize tables in opposing rows so that individuals face one another in pairs. Identify a timekeeper with a loud voice to manage the session. At the first “Go!,” have each duo exchange the printed work product they brought and allow one minute to quietly review. Each person should then spend two minutes asking questions and giving suggestions (with the timekeeper watching the clock, alerting everyone when to change focus). Each pair will be together for a total of five minutes (one-minute review + two-minute suggestions to Person A + two-minute suggestions to Person B). After five minutes, have those on one side of the table move seats by one position (the person on the end fills the now empty spot on the opposite side). Repeat until you run out of people or time. If your organization does lunch-and-learn or other less formal gatherings, this can be a fun team or cross-team activity to integrate.
• Conduct a formal feedback session. Schedule an hour. Each person should bring a physical copy of something on which they’d like feedback (a storyboard, a graph, a slide, a presentation). Set expectations for the session and share tips for giving effective feedback (see Exercise 9.3). Divide people into groups of three. Within these triads, each person should spend five minutes lending context to what they’ve brought to share and the specific feedback they seek, followed by ten minutes of group discussion and suggestions. Rotate so that each person in the group has an opportunity to share their work and get feedback (for a total of three 15-minute segments, one each focused on Person A, Person B, and Person C’s work). End with a full-group debrief on what worked well, whether you’ll do it again, and what you would do differently next time. This can be a standalone session or also works well as part of a team offsite.

It can also be useful to create non-work-centric forums for presenting and exchanging feedback. This takes away some of the pressure, making it easier to give and receive critique. As people become practiced exchanging feedback in a low-risk setting, they start to build a habit that can better enable them in the work environment. This can be a particularly smart approach if you’re trying to change the culture in an environment that hasn’t historically been conducive to open feedback. Here are a couple of ideas related to this:

• Introduce “review & critique” time in your regular team meeting. This is similar to the “present & discuss” idea raised previously, but focuses on publicly available examples rather than work-specific ones. This takes pride and potential for taking criticism personally off the table entirely. Assign a team member ahead of time to source a graph, slide, or data visualization from the wild (for example, the media). Spend a few minutes talking through it, then have each person share a positive point about the work and a suggestion for what they might do differently. Rotate who picks the example each time. There can be a tendency to look for non-effective examples, which is fine, but evaluating good examples in this manner can make for productive conversations and help people identify finer points of feedback, too.
• Create a team monthly #SWDchallenge. See Exercise 2.16 or storytellingwithdata.com/SWDchallenge for more on our monthly challenges. As a team, you can participate in a live challenge, pick one from the archives, or create your own. In the first week of the month, set the specific challenge and encourage participants to identify non-work data of interest. Over the course of the rest of the month, individuals or partners should create their respective data visualizations. At the end of the month, schedule time in person or virtually and invite those who participated. Have each person or duo present their creation and get feedback from others. This idea is inspired by Simon Beaumont (Global Director of Business Intelligence at Jones Lang LaSalle), who has been doing something similar with his team. Simon observed that, over time, this has led to both improved data visualization and more productive feedback exchange among his team in general. Additionally, they record their webinar feedback sessions and make them broadly available so others at the organization can watch and learn as well.

If your team could benefit from cultivating a culture of feedback, step back and think about how you can best do that and whether one of these ideas might help. Take liberties to design something that will work well for your team based on the environment. Learn and iterate and determine how to evolve the ways in which you facilitate feedback over time. Doing this well can help everyone hone their skills and create better data communications!

Exercise 9.5: refer to the SWD process

Over the course of this book, we’ve covered six lessons to set you up for successful data communications. It can be helpful to revisit these with a specific project in mind. When you find yourself needing to communicate with data, read the following for a reminder of the main lessons we’ve covered and some thought starters to reflect on for the project you face (each of these corresponds to a chapter of the same number). Refer back to the practice with Cole solutions within each chapter for illustrations and examples and the practice at work exercises for additional guidance on applying the various lessons.

(1) Understand the context. Who is your audience? What motivates them? What do you want to communicate to your audience? Articulate your Big Idea. The Big Idea has three components, it (1) articulates your point of view, (2) conveys what’s at stake, and (3) is a complete sentence. Create a storyboard of the components you’ll cover with your audience to help them understand the situation and convince them to act. Determine what order will work best; arrange sticky notes to create the desired narrative flow. You now have a plan of attack to follow. Get client or stakeholder input at this point if possible.

(2) Choose an appropriate visual. What do you want to communicate? Identify your point and how you can show your data in a way that will be easy for your audience to understand. This often means iterating and looking at your data a number of different ways to find the graph that will help you create that magical “ah ha” moment. Draw it! Consider what tools and other resources you have at your disposal to realize your drawing and then create it. Ask for feedback from others to learn whether your visual is serving its intended purpose or give you pointers on where to iterate.

(3) Eliminate clutter. Is there anything that isn’t adding value? Identify unnecessary elements and remove them. Reduce cognitive burden by visually connecting related things, maintaining white space, cleanly aligning elements, and avoiding diagonal components. Use visual contrast sparingly and strategically: don’t let your message get lost in the clutter!

(4) Focus attention. Where do you want your audience to look? Determine how you can draw your audience’s attention to what you want them to see through position, size, and color. Use color sparingly and strategically, considering tone, brand, and colorblindness. Employ the “Where are your eyes drawn?” test to understand whether you’re using preattentive attributes to effectively direct your audience’s attention.

(5) Think like a designer. Words help data make sense. Clearly title and label graphs and axes and employ a takeaway title to answer the question, “So what?” Create visual hierarchy of elements to ease the processing and make it clear how to interact with your visual communications. Pay attention to details: don’t let minor issues distract from your credibility of message. Make your visual designs accessible. Spend time on the finer details of your design: your audience will appreciate it, heightening the odds for successful communication.

(6) Tell a story. Refer back to your Big Idea: create a pithy, repeatable phrase from it. Revisit your storyboard and arrange the components of your story along the narrative arc. What is the tension? How can your audience act to resolve it? Where and how does data fit into the narrative? How will your materials for a live presentation vary from those that are sent out to be consumed on their own? Create a data story that captures your audience’s attention, drives a robust discussion, and influences action!

Want to hang the preceding list at your desk for easy reference? A downloadable version can be found at storytellingwithdata.com/letspractice/downloads/SWDprocess.

How do you know if you’ve applied these lessons well? Refer to Exercise 9.6 for an assessment rubric that can be used for this.

Exercise 9.6: make use of an assessment rubric

I don’t tend to use rubrics in the context of visualizing and communicating data. People like rules, and they are too easy to turn into a formulaic approach when more nuanced thinking is warranted. That said, I understand the desire to have a way to assess the effectiveness of your own or others’ work. Consider the following framework to be a starting point to address this need.

I’m intentionally not going to be prescriptive or formulaic in how this should be used. I’ll outline a couple of options, but I encourage you to give thought to what makes sense given the specifics of your situation. Are you a manager giving feedback to an individual or multiple individuals on your team? An instructor needing to grade assignments? Or an individual wanting to judge your own work?

For those simply seeking a structured way to assess your own or others’ work, you can use the following as a checklist, or apply some simple labels (I personally like the three-category scale of “nailed it!,” “good,” and “more attention needed”; you can also sometimes have a fourth category of “not applicable”). A numeric score will be helpful if you need to assess across multiple individuals or see changes over time (for example, grading). You could use a simple 1-3 scale that aligns with the descriptors above, or a 1-10 scale if you crave a finer level of detail or find this more intuitive.

The preceding list should be adjusted given what you are assessing. Is it a graph? A slide? An entire presentation? There might be some components that don’t make sense for your scenario. There could be others you should add to have the full picture. I invite you to modify the rubric to best meet your needs. The final lines are intentionally blank to encourage you to think through what additional components may make sense given the specifics of what you are trying to assess.

I’ll close this exercise by pointing out that there are a number of intangibles that are harder to evaluate in a structure like this. These are little things that sum up to create a good or not-so-great experience. There is something about the manner in which this is achieved that plays into overall success as well. For example, one aspect to consider is whether and how time was optimized given the relative importance of what needs to be accomplished. You do not need to apply the entire storytelling with data process every time you touch data—be smart about where and how you apply the various lessons we’ve covered for maximum benefit with minimal additional work. That sort of efficiency and prioritization should be recognized.

Use Exercise 9.5, which outlined the SWD process, as you work through a current project. Once finished, run through this rubric as a final assessment to ensure all components were addressed.

You can download this rubric and adjust for your own needs at storytellingwithdata.com/letspractice/downloads/rubric.

Exercise 9.7: facilitate a Big Idea practice session

Before spending time visualizing data or creating content, pause to understand the context, consider your audience, and craft your message. Devoting thought to these important aspects can yield massive payback in being able to better meet your audience’s needs, get your message across, and drive the action you seek. One way to encourage and kickstart this process across a team is to organize and conduct a Big Idea practice session.

This guide should give you what you need to introduce the concept of the Big Idea and facilitate an exercise with individual, partner, and group discussion components. The overarching goal is to help participants practice articulating the Big Idea and giving and receiving feedback to refine.

Prep work: what to do ahead of time

Read through this guide. Also review the Big Idea-related exercises in Chapter 1. Explain the Big Idea to someone else and have them ask you questions. The resulting conversation will help you get comfortable talking about this concept, which will better prepare you for facilitating it with a group (do this a couple times with different people if possible!).

When it comes to the logistics for the session, decide who will attend. Book a room and send a calendar invite for 60 minutes. It’s ideal if everyone can attend in person (if not possible, pair those joining remotely and have everyone tune into the main room for the introduction and debrief). Print a copy of the Big Idea worksheet per person (you can make copies from Exercise 1.20, or download from storytellingwithdata.com/letspractice/downloads/bigidea). If people tend to use laptops for everything, grab a handful of pens: this exercise is best done in a low-tech manner (encourage people to leave their laptops behind!).

Example agenda (HH:MM)

A scenario to introduce the Big Idea

Introduce the Big Idea by presenting the three components—remember, the Big Idea should:

1. Articulate your unique point of view,
2. Convey what’s at stake, and
3. Be a complete sentence.

To illustrate, introduce the following scenario (excerpted from storytelling with data, Wiley, 2015), then demonstrate the example Big Idea. Alternatively, you can use a scenario and corresponding Big Idea from one of the practice with Cole exercises in Chapter 1 or create your own.

SCENARIO: A group of us in the science department were brainstorming about how to resolve an ongoing issue we have with incoming fourth-graders. It seems that when kids get to their first science class, they come in with this attitude that it’s going to be difficult and they aren’t going to like it. It takes a good amount of time at the beginning of the school year to get beyond that. So we thought, what if we try to give kids exposure to science sooner? Can we influence their perception? We piloted a learning program last summer aimed at doing just that. We invited elementary school students and ended up with a large group of second- and third-graders. Our goal was to give them earlier exposure to science in hopes of forming positive perception. To test whether we were successful, we surveyed the students before and after the program. We found that, going into the program, the biggest segment of students, 40%, felt just okay about science, whereas after the program, most of these shifted into positive perceptions, with nearly 70% of students experiencing some level of interest towards science. We feel that this demonstrates the success of the program and that we should not only continue to offer it, but also to expand our reach with it going forward.

Let’s imagine that we are communicating to the budget committee who has control over the funds that we need to continue our program. The Big Idea could be: The pilot summer learning program was successful at improving students’ perception of science; please approve our budget to continue this important program.

This Big Idea:

1. Articulates our point of view (we should continue this important program),
2. Conveys what’s at stake (improved student perception of science), and
3. Is a complete (and single!) sentence.

After introducing the Big Idea and talking through an example, it’s time to turn it over to participants to practice.

Hands-on exercise: the Big Idea worksheet

Ask each participant to identify a project. This can be any example where they need to communicate something to an audience (something they can talk about openly, as they will be sharing with others). Pass out the Big Idea worksheet and ask participants to work through it for the project they have identified.

Allow about 10 minutes for this. As participants are working their way through the Big Idea worksheet, wander the room to monitor progress and answer any questions. After approximately 10 minutes or when you see that nearly everyone has completed writing their Big Idea (and hopefully every person has at least started), you can begin the partner discussion.

Partner discussion

It’s okay if not everyone is totally done with their Big Idea, as they will still have a chance to refine as they confer with partners. Next, ask them to partner up and take turns sharing their Big Idea and giving each other feedback. I usually give a couple of specific directions related to this:

• If there are people in the room who are more familiar with what you’re going to be talking about and others who are less so, partner first with someone who is less familiar. If this requires standing up and moving around the room, please do so.
• Receiving partner, your job is very important. Your job is to ask the person reading their Big Idea a ton of questions, helping them get clear and concise on their message.

Allow 10 minutes for this initial partner discussion. Wander the room to answer any questions that arise. After about 5 minutes, check in with each group to make sure they’ve moved on to the second person so both partners have a chance to share and get feedback.

After about 10 minutes, direct participants to switch and partner up with a new person and repeat the process of taking turns to share and receive feedback. Again, check in with each at the five-minute mark to make sure people are shifting to the second person so both people in each partner group have a chance to share and receive feedback. Allow 10 minutes for this second iteration of partner feedback. Then direct participants to come back together for group discussion.

Facilitate the group discussion

The group discussion that you guide after the individual and partner work is important for reinforcing content and helping address any questions or challenges that may have arisen as part of the Big Idea exercise.

The following are questions to spark ideas (pause after each of these and let the conversation take its natural course, helping to reinforce the main points below):

• Did you find this exercise easy or challenging?
• What was hard about this exercise?
• How did you get it down to a single sentence?
• Show of hands: how many people found partner feedback to be helpful?
• What was helpful about partner feedback?

Points to make as part of the conversation:

• Getting it down to a single sentence is hard. Concision is surprisingly difficult, especially when it’s work that we are close to—it’s hard to let go of all those details! The Big Idea won’t be the only thing you communicate; rather, supporting content will come into play.
• There are various strategies that can help you get it down to a single sentence. It can sometimes be useful to write a few sentences first, then trim. The Big Idea worksheet can also be helpful, since it breaks each component apart so you can deal with them one at a time. By the time you get to the end, you have the pieces and it’s like a puzzle that you can work to put together in a way that makes sense.
• Getting it down to a single sentence is important. The sentence restriction is arbitrary, but it is purposefully short. This forces you to let go of most of the details. You probably also have to do some wordsmithing. This is important: clarity of thought happens through this wordsmithing process.
• Saying it out loud is helpful. When we say things out loud, it ignites a different part of our brain as we hear ourselves. If you find yourself tripping up when reading your Big Idea, or something just doesn’t sound right, these can be pointers on where to iterate. Because of this, there is a benefit to saying the Big Idea out loud, even if it’s to yourself in an empty room. Even better if someone is present to react to what you’ve said, which brings us to the next point.
• Partner feedback is critical. As we get close to our work, we develop tacit knowledge: things that we know that we forget others don’t know (specialized language, assumptions, or things we take as given). Talking to a partner can be a great way to identify these issues and adjust as needed. The dialogue you have with a partner helps you get solid on the point you want to make and find the words that will help you make it clearly.
• The partner need not have any prior context. It can be helpful if your partner doesn’t have any context, because of the kinds of questions this will prompt them to ask. Simple questions like, “Why?” can be very useful, both because it helps point out something that is obvious to us but not to someone else and also because of the logic this forces us to articulate when it comes to answering. Your audience will never be as close to your work as you are, so soliciting feedback from someone less familiar can be really useful for identifying the right words to make your overall point accessible and understandable.
• Clearly articulating the Big Idea makes creating your communication easier. If you can’t clearly get your point across in a single sentence, how will you put together a slide deck or report that will do so? Too often, we go straight to our tools and start building content, without having a clear goal in mind. The Big Idea is that clear goal—the guiding North Star, directing the process of generating supporting content. Once it’s been formulated, it is the built-in litmus test for any bit of content up for consideration for inclusion: does this help me get my Big Idea across?

Best of luck facilitating the Big Idea session!

Exercise 9.8: conduct an SWD working session

I often facilitate working sessions with teams after conducting a storytelling with data workshop. I never cease to be amazed by the amount of progress people are able to make with a few low-tech tools and some dedicated time. Grab some colleagues, read SWD or this book, then use the guide outlined on the following pages to run your own storytelling with data working session.

Prep work: what to do ahead of time

Send a calendar invite for three hours to your team and book a conference room with plenty of table space and whiteboards. Stock up on supplies: colored markers, flip-charts, and multiple sizes of sticky notes (the 6×8-inch ones are awesome, as they are the same dimensions as a standard slide and can be used to mock up an entire presentation in a low-tech manner; also have some smaller ones on hand for those who may want to do higher level storyboarding and focus on general topics and flow before getting into the details).

Use the following instructions in combination with the storytelling with data process in Exercise 9.5 to organize a working session where everyone can have time and space to put lessons into practice, present, and receive feedback. The example agenda that follows works best for groups of 8-10 (enough time for everyone to present and give/receive feedback), but can be expanded for larger groups by adding more time to the present back portion (plan about 6-7 minutes per person or group). Instructions for participants are shown on the following pages; a downloadable version to print can be found at storytellingwithdata.com/letspractice/downloads/SWDworkingsession.

For the actual session, nominate someone to be timekeeper. They should keep an eye on the clock during project work time and alert participants when they are halfway through and when 20 minutes remain to ensure everyone has a chance to prepare low-tech content to present. During the present back, they should watch the clock and move discussion along as needed to make sure everyone has time to share and get feedback from the group.

Example agenda (HH:MM)

The following pages contain instructions for participants.

Project work: how to focus your time

Choose a project to focus on today. This can be on your own or in a group. Read through the storytelling with data process. Determine how you’d like to spend the next 75 minutes when it comes to putting one or more of the storytelling with data lessons into practice. Spend time sketching this out.

Here are some ideas of how you might use your time:

Lesson 1: understand the context

Articulate the Big Idea or craft a storyboard.

Lesson 2: choose an appropriate visual

Draw various views of your data and identify which will enable you to best make your point.

Lesson 3: eliminate clutter

Is there anything that isn’t adding value? Identify unnecessary elements and remove them.

Lesson 4: focus attention

How will you indicate to your audience where you want them to look? Plan your use of position, size, color, and other means of contrast to strategically direct your audience’s attention.

Lesson 5: think like a designer

Final polishing will take place in your tools—your mock-up design can be rough. Still, give thought to how you’ll organize elements to create structure and use words to make data accessible.

Lesson 6: tell a story

Sketch out the components of your story along the narrative arc. Where and how will data fit in? How can tension and conflict help you capture and maintain your audience’s attention? What pithy, repeatable phrase could you create to help your message stick with your audience?

Keep it low-tech: pens and paper are at your disposal (but please keep laptops closed!). Use your colleagues in the room as brainstorm partners or to solicit feedback from as you go along. Be creative and have fun!

Present back: share with group

You will have roughly five minutes to share a piece of what you’ve crafted or planned with the group. We will continue to be low tech: hand write or draw visuals to support what you’d like to present to the group for feedback.

Your present back should include:

1. A brief explanation of the background. This should incorporate the intended audience, overall goal/objective, key decision(s) to be made, and what success looks like.
2. How you’ve applied a storytelling with data lesson to your project. This could mean focusing on any of the following: your Big Idea, storyboard, ideas of how to best visualize the data, a comparison of how you had been looking at data and what changes you’ll make, how you’ll focus attention, or the overarching story you’ll tell. This doesn’t have to be fully executed; rather, well-formed ideas on what changes you’ll make or the approach you plan to take are fine. Draw and make use of the pens/paper/stickies so everyone can see what you’re envisioning. Frame the specific feedback you’d like from the group to help you continue to refine.

Debrief: discussion and Q&A

After everyone has had an opportunity to present and receive feedback, spend a few minutes discussing the following:

• How did this session feel? Was the time spent useful?
• What did you find most helpful?
• Are there changes we should make if we do it again in the future?
• What challenges do you anticipate applying SWD lessons in our work?
• What additional steps can we take to improve how we communicate with data?

Publicize the outcome of this session to other teams who might benefit (either by participating in something similar themselves or by virtue of being on the receiving end of the materials planned in your working session) and your management. Share success stories. Identify any aspects of the session that didn’t work as you’d anticipated, try to isolate why, and adjust.

Do everything you can to help make folks aware and supportive of everyone’s efforts: both the dedicated time planning and willingness to try new strategies for improving data-driven communications. Create champions who can help promote the power of data done well. This will lead to increased recognition on this important piece of the process, which will hopefully manifest as patience with you and your team for the ongoing time and resources it will take to do it well.

Exercise 9.9: set yourself up for successful data stories

When it comes to using story to communicate data, there are steps you can take to help improve your odds of success. The following outlines some specific things to consider when crafting and delivering data stories.

Try new things in low-risk places first. Don’t go into your next board or exec meeting and say, “Today, folks, I’m going to do something a little different—today, I’m going to tell you a story.” That’s not a recipe for success! Especially if anything feels counter-cultural for your organization or markedly different from what you’ve done in the past, try it out in a low-risk setting first. Learn and refine. Get feedback. Small successes will build your confidence and credibility for making bigger changes over time.

Order thoughtfully. For anything we want to communicate, there are typically many options for how to order the content and there is no single correct approach. Think about how you can organize things—whether elements in a graph, objects on a slide, or slides in a presentation deck—in a way that will make sense for your audience to create the overall experience you seek. Get feedback from someone less familiar with the content as a means to assess whether the way you’ve ordered your materials is likely to work for your ultimate needs.

Optimize materials for how you are communicating. Presenting live opens up a different set of opportunities for building our data stories. As we’ve seen through a number of examples, one strategy is to build visuals piece by piece for our audience in a live setting. Pair this with a fully annotated slide or two for the version that gets sent around so that those consuming it on their own get the same story that you walk through in a live progression. Give thought to the specifics of how you will be presenting and create materials that will serve you well.

Anticipate how it could go wrong. How might things go off the rails? How can you equip yourself to deal with that if it happens? Identify and pressure test your assumptions. Make sure you’ve investigated alternative hypotheses. Ask colleagues to play devil’s advocate and poke holes or play a snarky audience member. Anticipate questions and be well prepared to answer them. The time you spend prepping for how to respond to surprises will help you be more equipped to deal with them eloquently if they arise.

Answer the question, “So what?” Never leave your audience wondering why they are looking at what you’ve put in front of them. Don’t make them figure it out on their own. Make the purpose clear. Why are they here? What do you have to tell them? Why should they listen to you? Consider how you can use the various lessons we’ve covered to get your audience’s attention, establish credibility, and lead them to a productive conversation or decision.

Be flexible. Rarely do things go exactly as planned. If you can anticipate that things are likely to head in a direction not entirely in your control, be thoughtful about how you organize your approach and materials to be able to deal with this. In some circumstances, a “choose your own adventure” story may be warranted. Demonstrating willingness to be flexible and adjust to your audience is one fantastic way of establishing credibility and can help you turn a potential nightmare situation into a successful one.

Seek feedback. We’ve talked about feedback as you prepare your data stories, but it’s also important to solicit feedback after you’ve presented. Get input from your audience or colleagues on what worked well and what you could adjust in the future to best meet their needs (and through that, your own).

Learn from successes and failures. After each time you send off a report or present data, pause to reflect on how it went. For successful scenarios, think about why things worked and which aspects you can make use of in your future work. We can often learn even more from the cases that don’t go as well. What caused issues? What is in your control that you can change in the future? Share success and failure stories so that others can learn as well. In this way, we can all help each other improve.

The meta theme underlying all of these tips is to be thoughtful. Consider what success looks like and try to position yourself to make that happen so that the data stories you tell will have the impact you seek.

Exercise 9.10: let’s discuss

Consider the following questions related to everything we’ve covered over the course of this book and how you’ll apply them in your work. Discuss with a partner or group. If you’ve been undertaking the exercises in this book with others on your team (or even if you haven’t!), these will make for an excellent team conversation on how to integrate the storytelling with data lessons into everyone’s work.

1. What is one thing you will commit to doing differently going forward?
2. Reflect on the lessons covered in SWD and this book: (1) understand the context, (2) choose an appropriate visual, (3) declutter, (4) focus attention, (5) think like a designer, and (6) tell a story. Which lessons are most critical to do well in your work? Why is that? Which areas do you—or your team—need to develop the most? How can you do this?
3. Consider how you will apply the various lessons we’ve reviewed: where could things go wrong? How can you prepare for this or take steps to help ensure success? What other challenges do you anticipate? How will you overcome them?
4. Are there additional resources that would be helpful for your overall success when it comes to effectively visualizing and communicating with data?
5. What is your biggest takeaway from this book? How do you anticipate this will manifest in your day-to-day work?
6. Where do gaps exist between how you work today and how you’d like to be working when it comes to data storytelling? How can you address those?
7. Do you anticipate you will face resistance for the things you’d like to do differently? Who do you think it will come from? What can you do to overcome it?
8. We always face constraints when we work. What limitations do you face? How might these impact when and how you apply the storytelling with data lessons? How can you embrace these constraints to generate creative solutions?
9. What steps can you take to help others on your team or in your organization recognize the value of data storytelling and improve their skills?
10. What specific goals will you set for yourself or your team related to the strategies outlined in this book? How will you hold yourself (or your team) accountable to these goals? How will you measure success?