Data Viz in Reporting

I once had to do a program presentation using a file that had columns of numbers going out to column AY or something like that – see image below. Somebody didn’t show up due to an emergency, so I had to fill in, even though I had just arrived at the company and knew nothing about the program.

The image below is a fake version of the Excel file I presented, with the numbers blurred out, even though I dummied up the information.

It’s kind of like looking at a dashboard with all kinds of charts and you don’t know where to start.

It was hard to speak to it very logically or in organized fashion, and I don’t know how senior management felt about the information layout. Did everybody use this layout? Well, at least in the geographic area I was in.

I think today is improving in terms of visualization of information. There are books out there teaching you design basics and there is a LinkedIn page devoted solely to clarifying your graphs.

But there are still some people who want every square inch of the page to be filled with some kind of chart or table, leaving no white space.

SIgh.

In the situation mentioned earlier, I had to present a program using that specific file because I had no time to dream up a new layout. But when I was placed as team lead on that program a little later, I decided I would try to change the layout even though it was scary to buck convention. In fact, the night before the review, I debated on using a new presentation format or take the safe way and continue to use the old format.

Fortunately, it was a hit, and I kept the job.

If you want to stand out, this type of thing may be what you need to do: buck convention and come up with something demonstrably better and maybe unique. If possible, something with a WOW factor. In my case, the presentation was too busy for a busy senior executive to peruse so it was way easier to come up with something better.

The harder part was getting the guts to do it.