The art and science of an effective presentation

Presenting with a framework

The framework of your presentation starts with your understanding of the business task

By showcasing what business metrics you used you can help your audience understand the impact your findings wil have

Question

When creating a presentation to share with stakeholders, what is the purpose of a framework? Select all that apply.

• Give your audience context to better understand your data
• Create logical connections that tie back to the business task
• Help you focus on the most important information
• Describe the question or problem your data analysis answers

Correct. The purpose of a framework is to create logical connections that tie back to the business task. It also gives your audience context about your data and helps you focus on the most important information.

Weaving data into your presentation

Establishing the hypothesis early in the presentation will help your audience understand the data

The McCandless Method

1. Introduce the graphic by name
2. Answer obvious questions before they're asked
3. State the insight of your graphic
4. Call out data to support that insight
5. Tell your audience why it matters

Present the possible business impact of the solution and clear actions stakeholders can take

"Does this data point or chart support the point I want people to walk away with?"

Question

In a presentation, what is an initial hypothesis?

• A method for presenting data visualizations
• A theory you are trying to prove or disprove with data
• A question or problem your data analysis answers
• A way to give your audience context about your data

Correct. An initial hypothesis is a theory you’re trying to prove or disprove with data. You want to establish your hypothesis early in the presentation

Step-by-step critique of a presentation

Messy data presentation

The specific reasons the “messy” presentation falls short. Here is a preview:

• No story or logical flow
• No titles
• Too much text
• Inconsistent format (no theme)
• No recommendation or conclusion at the end

Messy presentation: people don’t know where to focus their attention

The main problem with the messy presentation is the lack of a logical flow. Notice also how the data visualizations are hard to understand and appear without any introduction or explanation. The audience has no sense of what they are looking at and why.  When people in the audience have to figure out what the data means without any help, they can end up being lost, confused, and unclear about any actions they need to take.

Good data presentation

Numerous best practices are applied to create a better presentation on the same topic. This “good” presentation is so much easier to understand than the messy one! Here is a preview:

• Title and date the presentation was last updated
• Flow or table of contents
• Transition slides
• Visual introduction to the data (also used as a repeated theme)
• Animated bullet points
• Annotations on top of visuals
• Logic and progression
• Limitations to the data (caveats) - what the data can’t tell you

Good presentation: people are logically guided through the data

The good presentation logically guides the audience through the data – from the objectives at the beginning all the way to the conclusions at the end. Notice how the data visualizations are introduced using a common theme and are thoughtfully placed before each conclusion. A good presentation gives people in the audience the facts and data, helps them understand what the data means, and provides takeaways about how they can use their understanding to make a change or do some good.

Test your knowledge on effective presentations

TOTAL POINTS 4

Question 1

Which of the following is an example of a business task? Select all that apply.

• Finding relationships between weather patterns and economic activity
• Theorizing that the amount of coffee purchased per day increases in the summer
• Identifying a company’s most productive manufacturing plants
• Comparing in-person and online clothing purchasing trends to make stocking decisions

Correct. Comparing purchasing trends, identifying productive manufacturing plants, and finding relationships between the weather and the economy are examples of business tasks.

Question 2

A supervisor asks a junior data analyst to present two hypotheses regarding a data analytics project. What is the purpose of a hypothesis?

• To theorize about data
• To describe methods
• To summarize data
• To introduce findings

Correct. The purpose of a hypothesis is to theorize about your data. Data analysts use them to establish what they want to prove or disprove.

Question 3

Which of the following is an example of an initial hypothesis? Select all that apply.

• A manufacturing plant's reduced output in the last month is due to a natural disaster that shut down production.
• A company's trend of annual revenue growth is from an increasing number of online sales
• An increase in wildlife presence is due to a record high in annual rainfall
• A relationship exists between the holiday season and increased traffic congestion

Correct. An initial hypothesis is a theory you’re trying to prove or disprove with data. Examples of an initial hypothesis include: a trend of annual revenue growth from an increasing number of online sales, a relationship between the holiday season and increased traffic congestion, and an increase of wildlife presence from a record high in annual rainfall.

Question 4

In the McCandless Method, the first step involves communicating to the audience where they should focus and what the graphic is about. Which step is this?

• Answer obvious questions before they’re asked
• State the insight of your graphic
• Introduce the graphic by name
• Calling out data to support your insights

Correct. In the McCandless Method, the first step involves communicating to the audience where they should focus and what the graphic is about. This is the step for introducing the graphic by name.

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Identify presentation skills and practices

Two keys responsibilities:

1. Analyze the data
2. Present your findings effectively

Presentation tips:

1. Channel your excitement
2. Start with the broader ideas
3. Use the five second rule
   • Wait five seconds after showing a data visualization
   • Ask if they understand
   • Give your audience another five seconds
   • Tell them the conclusion
4. Preparation is key

Sharing data findings in presentations

Tip 1: Know your flow

Just like in any good story, a data story must have a good plot (theme and flow), good dialogue (talking points), and a great ending or big reveal (results and conclusions). One flow could be an overview of what was analyzed followed by resulting trends and potential areas for further exploration.

In order to develop the right flow for your presentation, keep your audience in mind. Ask yourself these two questions to help you define the overall flow and build out your presentation.

Who is my audience?

• If your intended audience is executives, board members, directors, or other C-level (C-Suite) executives, your storytelling should be kept at a high level. This audience will want to hear about your story but might not have time to hear the entire story. Executives tend to focus on endings that encourage improving, correcting, or inventing things. Keep your presentation brief and spend most of your time on your results and recommendations. Refer to an upcoming topic in this reading—Tip 3: end with your recommendations.
• If your intended audience is stakeholders and managers, they might have more time to learn about how you performed your analysis and they might ask more data-specific questions. Be prepared with talking points about the aspects of your analysis that led you to your final results and conclusions.
• If your intended audience is other analysts and individual contributors, you will have the most freedom—and perhaps the most time—to go more deeply into the data, processes, and results.

What is the purpose of my presentation?

• If the goal of your presentation is to request or recommend something at the end, like a sales pitch, you can have each slide work toward the recommendations at the end.
• If the goal of your presentation is to focus on the results of your analysis, each slide can help mark the path to the results. Be sure to include plenty of breadcrumbs (views of the data analysis steps) to demonstrate the path you took with the data.
• If the goal of your presentation is to provide a report on the data analysis, your slides should clearly summarize your data and key findings. In this case, it is alright to let the data be the star or speak for itself.

Tip 2: Prepare talking points and limit text on slides

As you create each slide in your presentation, prepare talking points (also called speaker notes) on what you will say.

Don’t forget that you will be talking at the same time that your audience is reading your slides. If your slides start becoming more like documents, you should rethink what you will say so that you can remove some text from the slides. Make it easy for your audience to skim read the slides while still paying attention to what you are saying. In general, follow the five-second rule. Your audience should not be spending more than five seconds reading any block of text on a slide.

Knowing exactly what you will say when explaining each slide throughout your presentation also creates a natural flow to your story. Talking points help you avoid awkward pauses between topics. Slides that summarize data can also be repetitive (and boring). If you prepare a variety of interesting talking points about the data, you can keep your audience alert and paying attention to the data and its analysis.

Tip 3: End with your recommendations

When climbing a mountain, getting to the top is the goal. Making recommendations at the end of your presentation is like getting to the mountaintop.

• Use ****one slide for your recommendations at the end. Be clear and concise.
• If you are recommending that something be done, provide next steps and describe what you would consider a successful outcome.

Tip 4: Allow enough time for the presentation and questions

Assume that everyone in your audience is busy. Keep your presentation on topic and as short as possible by:

• Being aware of your timing. This applies to the total number of slides and the time you spend on each slide.
• Presenting your data efficiently. Make sure that every slide tells a unique and important part of your data story. If a slide isn’t that unique, you might think about combining the information on that slide with another slide.
• Saving enough time for questions at the end or allowing enough time to answer questions throughout your presentation.

Putting it all together: Your slide deck layout

In this section, we will describe how to put everything together in a sample slide deck layout.

First slide: Agenda

Provide a high-level bulleted list of the topics you will cover and the amount of time you will spend on each. Every company’s norms are different, but in general, most presentations run from 30 minutes to an hour at most. Here is an example of a 30-minute agenda:

• Introductions (4 minutes)
• Project overview and goals (5 minutes)
• Data and analysis (10 minutes)
• Recommendations (3 minutes)
• Actionable steps (3 minutes)
• Questions (5 minutes)

Second slide: Purpose

Everyone might not be familiar with your project or know why it is important. They didn’t spend the last couple of weeks thinking about the analysis and results of your project like you did. This slide summarizes the purpose of the project and why it is important to the business for your audience.

Here is an example of a purpose statement:

Service center consolidation is an important cost savings initiative. The aim of this project was to determine the impact of service center consolidation on customer response times.

Third slide: Data/analysis

First, It really is possible to tell your data story in a single slide if you summarize the key things about your data and analysis. You may have supporting slides with additional data or information in an appendix at the end of the presentation.

But, if you choose to tell your story using more than one slide, keep the following in mind:

• Slides typically have a logical order (beginning, middle, and end) to fully build the story.
• Each slide should logically introduce the slide that follows it. Visual cues from the slides or verbal cues from your talking points should let the audience know when you will go on to the next slide.
• Remember not to use too much text on the slides. When in doubt, refer back to the second tip on preparing talking points and limiting the text on slides.
• The high-level information that people read from the slides shouldn’t be the same as the information you provide in your talking points. There should be a nice balance between the two to tell a good story. You don’t want to simply read or say the words on the slides.

For extra visuals on the slides, use animations. For example, you can:

• Fade in one bullet point at a time as you discuss each on a slide.
• Only display the visual that is relevant to what you are talking about (fade out non-relevant visuals).
• Use arrows or callouts to point to a specific area of a visual that you are using.

Fourth slide: Recommendations

If you have been telling your story well in the previous slides, the recommendations will be obvious to your audience. This is when you might get a lot of questions about how your data supports your recommendations. Be ready to communicate how your data backs up your conclusion or recommendations in different ways. Having multiple words to state the same thing also helps if someone is having difficulty with one particular explanation.

Fifth slide: Call to action

Sometimes the call to action can be combined with the recommendations slide. If there are multiple actions or activities recommended, a separate slide is best.

Recall our example of a purpose statement: Service center consolidation is an important cost savings initiative. The aim of this project was to determine the impact of service center consolidation on customer response times.

Suppose the data analysis showed that service center consolidation negatively impacted customer response times. A call to action might be to examine if processes need to change to bring customer response times back to what they were before the consolidation.

Wrapping it up: Getting feedback

After you present to your audience, think about how you told your data story and how you can get feedback for improvement. Consider asking your manager or another data analyst for candid thoughts about your storytelling and presentation overall. Feedback is great to help you improve. When you have to write a brand new data story (or a sequel to the one you already told), you will be ready to impress your audience even more!

Test your knowledge on presentation skills and practices

TOTAL POINTS 3

Question 1

Which techniques can be helpful to prevent nerves before a presentation? Select all that apply.

• Speak quickly so you don’t run out of time
• Prepare materials beforehand
• Describe each graph in-depth
• Channel your excitement

Correct. It’s helpful to channel your excitement to keep from getting nervous about a presentation. Preparing materials beforehand can keep you from forgetting your material, which may alleviate nerves.

Question 2

Which technique can make it easier to keep your body calm before a presentation?

• Starting with broad ideas
• Applying the five second rule
• Practicing breathing exercises
• Preparing material beforehand

Correct. Practicing breathing exercises can make it easier to keep your body calm before a presentation.

Question 3

Which practices are helpful for keeping an audience focused on your presentation? Select all that apply.

• Make constant gestures
• Build in intentional pauses
• Be mindful of nervous habits
• Make eye contact

Correct. The practices that help keep an audience focused include making eye contact, reducing nervous habits, and pausing intentionally.