Just the answer, please

By Zach Gemignani
July 2, 2006
Find more about: analytics bi presentations visualization

I spent the first half of our weekend morning stroll blissfully prattling on about the technical aspects of photography. I was attempted to explain to my wife, drawing on a high-school class and my flawed memory, the relationships between lens aperture, shutter speed, film sensitivity, focal distance, and light.

In the middle of this revery, my wife turned to me and explained how little she cared—and would it be too much trouble for me to stop talking about it? My semi-educational chatter was ruining the peacefulness of the walk.

I was confused. I know she loves to take pictures, and we've been having real problems with indoor pictures coming out blurry. Didn't she want to know why this was happening and what it would take to fix it? Turns out she'd prefer if I'd just adjust the settings so the camera would work. Just the answer, please.

My wife is an attorney and has an amazing mind for the intricacies of legal problems. I don't. Or more accurately, I have a visceral reaction when the conversation turns to torts, habeaus corpos, and subject-matter jurisdiction. I debate in my mind whether to try to follow the logic or simply space out. Like her, I just want the answer—not the journey.

All of which raises a question for business analysts: Is some of the resistance we encounter to data-driven decisions perhaps just a general queasiness with the detail? Perhaps the culprit isn't some organizational culture for gut-instinct decisions or distrust of the data. It is just the journey (i.e. the presentations filled with charts and graphs and numbers) that causes people to disengage from the discussion.

On this blog, we've often argued that better data presentation can make your analysis more accessible and impactful. But maybe the answer can be less data presentation—until it becomes absolutely necessary.

There are many legitimate reasons for presenting the details of an analysis; there are also some poor ones. Consider whether you have explained too much because...

    * you are self-conscious about your credibility?

    * you want to showcase all the hard work?

    * you assume the audience is like you?

    * you want our presentation to lead up to a dramatic conclusion?

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. All source code is released under a BSD License unless otherwise specified.

4 comments


July 3, 2006
Eric Lecoutre said:

We simply can't do without presentations.

I am quite sure you already have said it in your post about presentations: a good presentation begins with the conclusion (the answer).

BI analysts and lawers do share something: their work has nothing to do with detective novels: first page must begin with the name of the guilty one.

You know what you have to do: use Photography Intelligence and communication to prepare a synthese schema for your wife which both provides solutions and explains the problem (and post it on your blog -- I would also be interested).

Eric


July 7, 2006
Henk said:

Zach, this is a very tricky question. I think the answer depends on whether the presented answers are just plain, easy-to-verify, facts or incorporate some kind of conclusion.
For the first kind a simple answer is probably enough in most cases. It's a good habit to refer to the source of the facts. E.g. on a legal question you can refer to the relevant article in the concerned law. This adds credibility, and if one doubts the answer can be swiftly looked up.
For the second type of anser I myself am an advocate of the opposite: usually I don't care about the answer as such, as long as I understand how it was arrived. But - to be frank - only if the subject interests me. Probably I hv seen too many mess-ups to just take a conclusion for granted.
Because in BI always both elements are present, I call it tricky. Your point in leaving out details is very valid - as long as it doesn't influence the conclusion. Clustering (aggregating) information can to a certain extent make sense to guide conclusions while showing the details. Having said this, the key in good BI IS about leaving out the unnecessary details - it's the message that is important and the conclusions that can be derived from the data is what's vital. Showing how the conclusion awas arrived often add to the validity of the conclusion. Fluff only distracts and obscures the message (as you guys have repeatedly say so), but so does an overkill of information.
The "just the answer, please" people will only be right every time if they asked a perfect oracle. Unfortunaelty, there aren't that many around.


July 10, 2006
Zach said:

I think you lay out the challenge nicely. I certainly wouldn't suggest that providing only a conclusion is always the right answer. I would say that it is worth considering, on a case by case basis, whether a radically simplified presentation of an analysis would best suit a given audience.


July 29, 2006
Bob said:

Analytics of the Freudian kind might be in order here(?)...

* you are self-conscious about our credibility?

Your name

Email (optional, will not be shared)

Type the word "juice" (required to confuse the spammers)

Your comment


Add a comment






Joining Juice | Contact Us | Privacy Policy
© 2005—2009 Juice Inc.