Data Communication – Ep. 211

Most reporting problems aren’t a DAX problem—they’re a communication problem. In this episode, the team uses a thread on “how we communicate about data” as a jumping-off point to talk about what a report is actually for: transferring context, answering specific questions, and helping someone decide what to do next.

If you’ve ever shipped a beautiful report that nobody uses (or watched users immediately reach for “Export to Excel”), this one is a practical reset: design for the audience, clarify the questions, and make the path from KPI → cause → action obvious.

News & Announcements

Quick note from the show: Power BI Desktop had a minor revision (still the April release) while the May release hadn’t landed yet.

• Argus: Whole-tenant monitoring for Power BI — Argus is a “friend of the podcast” and focuses on operational visibility across your tenant: refresh monitoring, user activity/auditing, and lineage/permissions so you can spot issues early and prioritize what to fix.

• The Explicit Measures Podcast — The home page for the show (how to join live, where to subscribe, and quick links to recent episodes). If you’re sharing episodes internally, this is the easiest URL to hand people.

• Mail Bag (submit a question/topic) — Got a situation you keep running into (modeling, governance, UX, org friction)? Send it in and they’ll use it as a topic seed for a future episode.

Main Discussion

Data communication is the skill of turning “here’s a dataset” into “here’s what this means for you.” The team’s core point: most of us learned how to build visuals, but not how to deliberately communicate with them—so we default to cramming everything onto the canvas and hoping the audience finds the insight.

Takeaways to apply right away:

• Start with one audience and write down three questions the report must answer (questions, not visuals).
• Define the thresholds: what does “good” look like, what triggers concern, and what would “keep you up at night” if it moved the wrong way.
• Use a KPI → decomposition → action flow: lead with a headline number, then provide the few drill paths that explain it.
• Avoid “reporting the news” (just showing data). Instead, help users answer: “So what? Now what?”
• Treat “everyone exports to Excel” as a signal: either the report isn’t answering the real question, or the user needs the raw data to do their job.
• Recognize the difference between discovery (when you are the audience) vs. informing/educating (when you’re communicating to someone else).
• Don’t over-invest everywhere—pick the handful of highest-impact reports and build an explicit enhancement path (what additional data would unlock better decisions).
• If you want to improve data culture, don’t try to level-up the whole org at once. Find the teams/projects ready for deeper questions and build momentum there.

Looking Forward

If your BI team starts measuring success by decisions enabled (not reports delivered), “data communication” becomes a repeatable practice instead of an accidental byproduct of building charts.

Episode Transcript

0:32 good morning and welcome back to the explicit measures podcast with Tommy Seth and Mike we are waiting for our secret word of the day from Greg baldini so we can prove that we are in fact live so welcome everyone welcome back to the podcast we’re very happy to have you here here is now is now another day closer to the end of the weekend [Laughter] my dad used to see to people at work which they didn’t find very funny it would be on Friday and as they were leaving the best thing about

1:03 leaving the best thing about Friday Friday only two more days till Monday yeah I’m sure I wonder why they did they didn’t like that that’s funny let me check out we were just talking before the podcast started Seth was asking hey I’ve been listening to podcasts I see I seem like I’m a bit quieter than everyone else on the podcast and I was like well and Tommy goes Tommy times and it looks perfect Tommy you’re speaking with Two Italians they only have two volume levels loud and louder

1:34 there it is the secret word of the day is Sark church we should start giving away things wow yeah start truce yeah that’s nice oh is today the fourth May the fourth be with you my wife my my wife who doesn’t like Star Wars at all woke up this morning and says what are you gonna do about Star Wars May 4th in the on the podcast and I was like I don’t even know she’s like you should play this song I’m like that’s copyright infringement I cannot play this song we’re almost at two years we’re two weeks away from two years let’s keep it going my opinions of your wife just may have changed a little bit

2:05 may have changed a little bit she doesn’t watch Star Wars and somehow she knows so the only reason I think she knows these things is because she slides swipes through like Instagram or face of Facebook bookogram or whatever the thing is these days and someone someone else yeah twit faceagram or whatever it is there’s something she’s swiping through that gets a little a snippet and someone someone has a little flashy thing that says may the fourth be with you and that’s how she knows about these trendy things this is great actually intro intro but my buddy actually started getting

2:36 but my buddy actually started getting like really into Star Wars and he actually got Tommy let’s be honest here my buddy bye butt Tommy Tommy really got in Star Wars when you hear the story you’ll know it’s definitely not me let me tell you about a friend of mine I got a friend sorry I didn’t mean to Interruption what matters to me is on the wall yeah

3:06 [Laughter] but he actually started buying the costume because then there’s actually like a whole club so to speak like you like a whole club so to speak like when you go to like somewhere and know when you go to like somewhere and you see people dressed up yeah in this Comic-Con right oh no like if you go to like a baseball game and they walk on the field or they’re at like at them amusement park yeah sure the mascots right yeah yeah no no no this people dressed as Star Wars

3:36 but like the actors of right the actors so to speak and you’re like who are they where did they come from so there’s actually a whole thing where you actually have to submit a costume and then you can get invited as that character to go to like he’s gone to charity events he’s literally been working at an angle here yeah he he was not dark I don’t know the the latest bad guy Darth Maul

4:15 but he he actually got invited because of his costume was so good he was on the light Tampa Lightning hockey and they went into the announcing booth on like the May 4th so there’s like this whole thing that you can actually do if you really want to get into it I have no idea who the bad so basically you’re telling me if we dress up like Star Wars characters back access pass to anything we want to go do he’s gone to Disney he’s gone to Universal Studios dressed as these guys yeah all right well who’s your character

4:45 yeah all right well who’s your character part of that is part of those beans does he have to work on his voice acting or does he just not say anything at all he built an audio box that sounds like the character yeah okay all right yeah that’s pretty impressed I’m impressed Tommy I can’t wait to see the outfit when the next time I see you hold on Tommy I want to see it yeah yeah my friend my friend my buddy my buddy but he’s really into Stars most

5:15 buddy but he’s really into Stars most personal friend of mine guys let me tell you a story the only other a news or intro announcements that are out there right now I believe Power bi desktop had a minor revision so it’s still the April release the the May release has not occurred yet but as I was in my power bi desktop the other day give me a little notification hey your your desktop is out of date so if you install your desktop from the Microsoft store by downloading the exe file as opposed to going to the Microsoft store I believe

5:46 going to the Microsoft store I believe the version has changed I just updated yesterday on five three to a minor revision so anyways FYI that’s out there if you haven’t seen it there might be some bug fixes hopefully they’re fixing the on visual editing debacle that is that is that is on visual editing I was I was talking with people the last couple days and there was like everyone’s I can’t I can’t I can’t it’s so difficult did you switch back because I’ve been trying I’m not familiar I will not I will I will force myself to learn it it is it’s the way

6:17 myself to learn it it is it’s the way they’re gonna go They’re gonna make it happening happening I don’t know I don’t know it is the way you think they’re gonna force it oh they’re gonna force it for sure yeah I think it’s the only thing we can send it’s it’s coming yeah the only thing we can do at this point I think is talk about like just some of the quality of life improvements around it because if it’s for end users these are things I think we pointed out on the show speaking of quality of life improvements minor tweak to this Improvement it is it raises my spirits and then the

6:49 it is it raises my spirits and then the rest of the day just downhill until the next time we speak speaking of quality of life Improvement small one in the power bi tabs in Microsoft teams right you can almost feel that there there hasn’t been as much adoption as they want and maybe it’s because you have to like configure things to work like get the power bi reports to work in teams so now they’ve like changed that experience to just go grab the link from your power bi report and paste it in here right like

7:22 yeah so they’ve now launched that in there and that experience has changed so hopefully it’s a little bit better because to their point in here right same report can be used in multiple different teams in different areas and previous experience people may not know that they have to go to a different tab or or how to configure it set it up Etc so I will say this something changed inside the service so remember how I was graping about hey by the way there are differences in power Bay reports that you can’t see that you can’t see the the deployment Pipelines so I don’t know

7:53 deployment Pipelines so I don’t know when it appeared but over the course of the last two weeks or so I can now see the diff compare button that now appears inside deployment pipelines so I’m actually quite thrilled about this you can now publish a report in the data and the data set the data set when publish to a different workspace you can now see side by side line level changes and it shows you exactly what’s changing code line by line basically so you can actually now in the service see individual changes

8:23 in the service see individual changes and it will highlight where it finds a difference it’ll then point out okay this individual Line is now different the the option has changed like the language was us and maybe they formatted it slightly different or something like that so you can see those individual line changes now in deployment pipelines which I think actually from a Enterprise reviewing standpoint will be very helpful because as you deploy reports now you’ll actually have a process you could follow where you now incorporate this as part of your review process build a report make the model push it to

8:54 build a report make the model push it to Dev Dev have a review sit down with your your senior engineer and go through okay let’s review this we’re going to do a release this weekend okay let’s go through the reviews which ones are we updating and Publishing and you’ll be able to know exactly oh we added an annotation on this particular expression oh here it is it’s been removed or added whatever it is so anyways I thought that was a really neat feature that’s finally out and I’m very happy to start playing around with that one as well have you guys seen that yet have you have you had a chance to look at that deployment Pipelines it’s a soft touch but this just shows that Microsoft listens to the podcast

9:25 that Microsoft listens to the podcast they heard your complaint yeah they fixed it it was it’s been so great thanks thanks for listening Microsoft all one of them have now been listening oh it only takes one Mike it’s just saty at the top I was about to say it just happens excellent let’s move on to some of our main topic for today I think this is going to be an interesting thread of conversation here around today this is a a thread that’s coming from oh

9:57 this is a a thread that’s coming from oh try to get the name here right I don’t know where I put it on Twitter here I

10:01 know where I put it on Twitter here I think I navigated away accidentally yeah Kate green book cat cat green book hang on I’m on the actual article okay so cat green book has written an article and then from that article she put out a series of how do you communicate about data and and kind you communicate about data and and talking about different ways we of talking about different ways we communicate and then relating that to what happens in reporting really interesting article

10:31 interesting article Tommy thank you for putting the chat the the Twitter feed so it sounds like in the Twitter feed this is like a snippet of a number of items that came from her original article almost a Twitter a Twitter thread that was occurring here but really good content and I want to be curious what you guys thoughts after you reading through this one and anything that resonated with you across how do you communicate using data my first initial reaction was in simple terms she talks about

11:02 in simple terms she talks about communication is how you share information with someone else and I I think I’ve resonated with this concept A Lot the idea that we’re using data and visuals to communicate or to talk or or express some information between people and it she goes on to say every day we received and and receive and send communication by using hearing touch smell smell and and taste and I would say of all these I would really like to start tasting my data I think that would be probably the the sense that I missed the

11:33 probably the the sense that I missed the most when I’m working on these data pieces pieces I I I was I was intrigued a little bit about where she was gonna go but I I did appreciate the the second one where she starts to talk about like smell is data smellification and taste is data tastification there’s some shirts in here man there there’s got to be some sort I make data that has great tastification

12:04 it’s the next level of reporting you it’s the next level of reporting right like maybe she’s onto know right like maybe she’s onto something guys yeah I think so small Vision maybe yeah maybe computers maybe we need to build a sensory box that plugs into your computer yeah exactly emits and fragrance right I definitely think I need to report Tommy will make a smell like trash wow

12:41 no Tommy’s Tommy’s reports would smell like pizza every day so yeah it’s gonna it’s gonna cannoli Sunday oh this is my cannoli report it’s like how mom used to make it that’s just like my mom used to make reports just like Ma just reports like Mom used to make oh that’s good that’s pretty good this is very fun this is a very similar topic it’s like a the evolution of 191 which is the data story telling is the conduit for Literacy By Mara

13:13 is the conduit for Literacy By Mara primetti and this is a great I love we’ve been talking a lot about storytelling and communication we did the story Framing and story the story framing storyboarding topic and I think there’s a reason why we’ve been really touching on these topics to me I really think we have I don’t want to say an issue but there is a misconception of what reporting supposed to be both in the organization and I think for analysts so I think they’re arising this

13:43 analysts so I think they’re arising this new content and I think us talking about it is realizing yeah you can build great reports with all the bells and whistles but there’s another purpose here that we really need to be focusing on what are we really measuring but more importantly how are we communicating or having that dialogue with the user how are we actually communicating what the questions are which I it’s just not part of documentation it’s not part of if you’re going to look to do how to do power bi or how to power bi that’s not part of the conversation

14:13 that’s not part of the conversation right now that’s a really good point because you look at all the dashboard in a day training things everything is so tactical click this button make this visual build the stacks everything is so mechanical about that there’s a lot less of the of the what’s called The Fluffy side or or the softer side of bi the gray area the gray area where it’s like how do you develop something that is is impactful and I think in later on in Kate’s images that she puts here in this Twitter thread she starts pointing out

14:43 thread she starts pointing out there’s there’s different types of visuals for different types of way of educating people you have to be naturally curious around information and data and there’s visuals that are used to support discovery discovery that are used to inform like an observation is being made and then there’s ones that are being used to educate here’s what I’ve found I’m trying to lead you down a story path to educate you on a particular topic or area area and I feel like these resonate very well with when I see reporting there is reporting that’s very clearly

15:13 there is reporting that’s very clearly built for Discovery here’s a bunch of things click around find what you want to find to find there’s also a lot of reporting that is around informing right here’s here’s some here’s some trends that are not normal normal and then how to focus your attention there and then lastly the education portion which I think to me feels a bit more infographicy in nature a little bit more styled I would say well I think the the first stage I think that I don’t know if it’s chronological but she talks about that first step is to discover and that she says like to

15:43 to discover and that she says like to find it’s discovering or Define Data Insights I find it interesting she’s basically correlating the two or associating the two Discovery is basically the Data Insights which again goes against the buzzwords when we talk about power bi is like find your insights with data this goes back to the story framing one I think Ryan Cantrell I don’t know who wrote the book story storytelling but our purpose and I think we we kind but our purpose and I think we we miss this like we have a blank canvas of miss this like we have a blank canvas how much how many of us are building

16:13 how much how many of us are building trying to build a report first off or trying to find the outliers trying to find interesting tidbits or in a sense something unexpected something new before we actually start building the actual report that’s a great question I I don’t think I’d do that right away I think a lot of before I build a report I think I’m asking a lot of questions of why do you need this information tell me why explain explain sorry Seth you’re gonna say something else no I I take it in two different ways right like the the discovery or data analysis with visualization right

16:45 data analysis with visualization right can in my mind can mean a couple things one is you’re using power bi as a tool to access data you can’t in other ways maybe that’s because the data volumes maybe because you don’t have access to the source system so you’re actually doing your exploratory data analysis through tables and visuals the other part of that though is also exploratory you may know your data but you’re just trying to figure out like the best way to represent that yeah to the end user a lot of playing around that I I think I like the delineation of

17:17 that I I think I like the delineation of like the her walking through and saying like this is this is how most people start to play around with visualization like you should like see whether or not the data looks best in this bar chart or maybe it’s a stack bar chart or maybe it’s a different way to visualize it all together and and that exploration I think by Nature happens and we just gloss over it but it’s good to talk about it and that’s where I I see this experience for most end users

17:50 experience for most end users being is they’re trying to put something together for themselves that makes sense and and that’s where I view that I feel like your comment is also around the idea of beauty is in the eye of the beholder related so the the like insights are of value to the eye of the beholder mindset like so things that I find insightful about a piece of data or a data set are probably different than what my other audience members potentially would look at in that report and so I think what you’re

18:21 that report and so I think what you’re you’re alluding there to Seth is the discovery and and she points out here how do you find the Insight who is this information for if and the sentence here in one of the the chats here I was talking about if you’re the one discovering information you are the audience it’s you who are thinking through things so I’m picking out data points that are interesting to me that may not necessarily translate to the audience you’re building this report for and so you may so that’s where I feel like those initial questions are very important here to say why do you

18:51 very important here to say why do you need this information what is keeping you up at night how does this report help you do your daily job so I I don’t want to divert too far and if it does we can park and lot this comment comment but a lot of like walking through once again the communication of data where my mind goes is this delineation or is there a delineation between tool like self-service bi and the lay like technical data person in a business

19:24 like technical data person in a business unit unit versus versus professional data people right where if this make this correspondent this makes a lot of sense right if we’re talking about inform inform to discover and then to educate especially in the to educate part part how many self-service users of any bi tool are actually doing that or thinking about reporting and visualization to that degree or is it they they are now because we’re talking about it well I I think there’s

19:55 talking about it well I I think there’s another there’s another I think misconception that the the self-discovery is not a skill it is a

20:03 self-discovery is not a skill it is a skill to in order to do the exploration side of it yeah yeah I’m not suggesting people can’t do their own analysis obviously self-service bi is taking off by storm no and I think there’s a lot of value that automatically inherently comes out through business units because they know their business yeah right so they start developing reporting that is relevant to the business but is it is it designed with these things in mind I would argue probably

20:33 things in mind I would argue probably not I would so that’s where I was going I was I was thinking when I’ve looked at reports there is very very specific use cases and I think people when they start diving into information and or data even when you’re in Excel there’s you you’re usually coming at the information with a very specific question and I don’t think companies spend well maybe they do but I feel like when I as a business user when I was in Excel trying to dig through data usually there was some request that said hey we need to understand X or Y or this why

21:05 understand X or Y or this why are why is the sales down for this customer or what happened here or how do we explain this reason and so what we do is we instead of building more broad level reporting that answers multiple questions I think a lot of the business units focus on very narrow questions or very specific things and then go hunt for data to support or approve or disprove what that thing is doing and like like I feel like that is more where I see a lot of business level reporting occurring it’s very to your point Seth they know their data they know their

21:36 they know their data they know their business unit they’re building very specific things for them so a central team has a little bit more of a struggle coming in and saying let’s let’s build you a bunch of reports I I I’m gonna disagree I think that’s a very data culture that’s very matured that’s doing that that under it has very intimate knowledge of their data can argue and talk to it I think a lot of organizations go into reporting with expectations of what it’s going to already going to look like and they just in a sense want to monitor or simply communicate like show me sales for each

22:06 communicate like show me sales for each rep and that will go from there show me how like show me how many sends we’ve done but asking the questions okay maybe yeah like not saying it doesn’t happen it’s a spectrum I think I would agree I see companies doing the same thing you’re doing like hey this is what we should be looking at but I think also too some business units to your point don’t even know what to count what to measure how do you like what is the measure of success we haven’t even talked about that yet or they they say they they’re too focused on a high level number like just show me sales for products yeah okay we can do that it’s

22:38 products yeah okay we can do that it’s not answering anything and we want to see that for two years but asking those specific questions because they may have a project a campaign or a decision to make make right right this is also where I would maybe put in a little bit more language around or a little bit more thought around this is why people scream so much when I can’t get the export to excel button if I can’t because because if you do this right if you ask for these visuals a certain way

23:08 these visuals a certain way and you can’t get the answer out well the reason why you can’t the reason why people are screaming for Excel to be able to export to excels because they’re either don’t understand how to articulate the question or we’re building reports and things that aren’t value adding for them right in a way that they can then extract that information yeah and and go use it in their own system so that’s like great thank you I can see sales by over a year this year in this last year right that doesn’t that’s not my whole story I need that I need access to that data so I can do more things with it or

23:39 data so I can do more things with it or the last quick thing I’ll say is if you remember Kurt Bueller had that article about migrating reports and I think that’s also another thing we’ve been looking at it this way for so long we don’t know how else to look at it where you have an Excel file and they just want to translate that to power bi and it’s like this is not saying anything listening to what you’re trying to get out of this Excel report before we just migrate this to power bi as is I this conversation is interesting from the standpoint that I I almost wonder if

24:11 the standpoint that I I almost wonder if business and I’m I’m talking about folks that don’t know much about power bi but are coming into reporting tools if they’re just treating it the same way that they’ve treated other tools in the past like Excel right it’s a means for me to extract data and look at it in Excel or it’s a me like what I’m saying like I now have access to these models I might build a few visuals or if I do build a report it’s just reporting these these specific things as

24:41 reporting these these specific things as opposed to building something that solves that that I can reference that answers my questions for me yeah you answers my questions for me yeah right like is everything analysis know right like is everything analysis all the time and it because I’m raising this question because even when we go and talk to folks who have built power bi reports or the fund states that they’re in and if you if you want to talk about dissecting another person’s report go check out our our Tuesday podcast but these conversations are where you take

25:13 these conversations are where you take bit like reporting into business intelligence I think right and why all of this time spent around how do you take it just from raw information and data dumping and you figuring out like I can extract some data here I can extract some data there and then I I know this special sauce that nobody else does that I’m gonna do on my personal app like no it doesn’t have to be that way nor should it be that way if we talk about these things we have tooling that allows you to just get the answer yeah and I

25:44 you to just get the answer yeah and I think that’s that’s maybe where increasing data culture within an organization starts to make the biggest difference because how she’s articulating the process of yes data information knowledge wisdom right you have to bring along all these groups that we’ve now incorporated into this ecosystem that we call self-service because I don’t think that knowledge base is there of how do you how do you raise your game to the next level well just like their structured format around

26:14 just like their structured format around power we have the technical side there’s really no structured training or structured knowledge path for the soft skills of being able to speak to what are we trying to measure being able to speak to translating a problem it’s like a self-stepping thing yeah it’s not saying there is no training on it but there’s not really any structure or it’s not in a sense as visible as do your point Seth people take oh if I learned Dax and I learn data modeling I’m good at Power bi which is the biggest misconception

26:52 all that stuff is just a means to an end so I’m going to go back to the thread the chat thread here on on Twitter a bit more I really liked her a visual that she wrote or had about halfway down the article here talking about who is your data for if the data is for you you’re doing more of a discovery type of report if the data is for the data visuals are for somebody else you’re looking to inform and or educate what are your thoughts on that do you feel like that’s that is a fair assumption if you’re trying to discover something the reporting’s built for you but if you’re

27:22 reporting’s built for you but if you’re trying to inform or educate those are for other people or other giving data to other individuals I think that speaks to this conversation that’s what I thought it was relevant here yeah yeah where you you have to make the the flip into making something that is going to be valuable for a wider audience or technically understanding the audience and knowing what questions you’re trying to answer with this report right I agree and and a lot of that Discovery or

27:52 and and a lot of that Discovery or analysis that you’re doing with the different visualizations are yes to answer your own questions but I think that’s where it switches from self-service person to maybe them building their own reports for a business unit and and incorporating some of those thoughts and ideas right but like her addressing these and pointing them out and our conversation I think bowed to the fact that you can take this a lot further in I don’t know man like educating people on quick wins that they can

28:24 people on quick wins that they can Implement in their self-service reporting reporting so I’ve been trying to build about every two weeks a report for myself on either something I’m doing whether it’s cycling or for my company or for just even like books I’m reading and I’m trying to answer questions and that she says it’s easier to build a report for yourself I think when you’re under the spotlight everything changes and it forces you to think about wait I’m looking at this it’s not helping me make any decisions like I’ve literally gotten

28:55 any decisions like I’ve literally gotten a report I publish ago this report sucks and I was like because I’m not answering anything and I have this report it smells like anchovies this yeah this report is old Tomatoes thing so like old Tomatoes no thing like this is a yeah but but seriously though this goes back to what another thing where building a report for yourself or trying to answer your own questions forces you in that mindset rather than I just need to put visuals on like well what am I doing with this and then going back and and reviewing the postmortem is this report actionable for me am I making better am

29:27 for me am I making better am I making any decisions off of this and forcing yourself to do that for your own performance or information is so important for us to be able to have that empathy for someone else I like your idea of the lens what action this is doing I think I think even before building report Pages what do I need to know what actions are taking and again like we say this all the time but I can’t stress enough how much that changes how much I build a report it really like I’ll do a lot of

29:57 report it really like I’ll do a lot of data Discovery I’ll put a bunch of visuals together I’ll grab a bunch of items I’ll put them down on the page I don’t really know what I’m looking for potentially yet but to your point before

30:04 potentially yet but to your point before I publish report or give it to someone else or if I actually just push it to party. com I am looking for how what action am I taking for this and the reports I use most frequently are come back to visit over and over again there’s one or two data points that are summarizing or aggregating enough information that I’m looking at that kpi that ratio that mix right of what’s important to me so that number or those areas I focus I build reports around those numbers and that way I don’t have

30:35 those numbers and that way I don’t have to go dig through every single piece of detail and what I find though I feel like is when I build a report that has those aggregated forms of information once I have the high level number I usually go in deeper to say okay what’s the decomposition of that number how can I how can I yes I see the number here it’s it’s good okay fine I walk away I don’t know action needed or there is action needed okay now what so then there’s like there’s almost like a sequence of thread of things okay I’ve seen that number my sales are down

31:05 seen that number my sales are down based on what I expect it to be or measuring against a goal what do I do now and then I start trying to hunt for other pages in the report that say okay let’s start picking apart the the Pyramid of categories or details or whatever and start picking things apart and trying to unpack it so I get to a point where I’m like oh yeah I can see it’s we we lost three sales people sales are down because we’re not able to sell enough so we gotta go fill those positions and then bolster more sales or whatever that may be

31:35 sales or whatever that may be that’s a common theme though right like which is if if there’s one tip in in all this that I could I could give for newer users of power bi or reporting or thinking about how do you report for other people it would be this as you’re doing your data analysis it’s very common for people not just to report the news right like here’s the data and you throw it on a page but if you think about actions we take and the common theme that that you’re speaking

32:06 common theme that that you’re speaking to Mike is on a high level yes it’s good to understand like the progress or the good things the like give me the metric that like rolls all up all those good things is it a sales number is it like number of like quality of something is it whatever the case may be because that gives me a litmus of like hey how successful are we but I quickly move off of that into how do I solve the problems to get better better quality and that’s where I dig

32:36 better quality and that’s where I dig into the detail so I don’t need details on everything yes typically I I just need to know Focus my attention in the areas that need fixing correct so so it’s like don’t throw everything into the report right right yeah totally drill into the details like don’t give me the noise of like all the successful stuff I care what do I care about and how do I go about increasing my positive something something and like identifying like the negative in which I can like reduce that so like

33:08 in which I can like reduce that so like a great metric within there is over time as I’m focusing on those detailed negative things is that decreasing like am I making a positive impact to whatever this business area is then that’s a great visual right like to track that stuff over time but in general I think what I’ve seen way too much of is just tons of visualization and detail around all the positive things and people don’t spend time there yeah and so two awesome points there

33:39 yeah and so two awesome points there Seth I I want to piggyback on and that I’ve used myself is that’s really changed the way I build or even just go into any report build is one I needed questions what am I trying what are the questions for this report the direct questions not the answers but what questions is this trying to answer three direct questions for a particular audience so I’m a manager I’m trying to find what’s my team performance how’s my region are we on track and that that by

34:10 region are we on track and that that by itself is directly where we focus on building first the other thing that has really changed the game and I’ve talked about this book before but it’s been a game changer is how to measure anything and one of the big things is what are my thresholds I’ve been living by this in asking people and also been like well what keeps me up at night what would keep me up at night about this so there’s going to be a high threshold of this is if it’s over we’re doing great I’m awesome we’re going to get promoted and there’s going to be something below where it’s going to should sound an

34:40 where it’s going to should sound an alarm alarm if we can understand that context those thresholds in any measurement you should have that have that you should be able to have a very direct way to answer the questions all right those those are really good points because it gives like key things especially like the thresholds right what is good and bad in your in your area what happens if bad happens right like right how bad is that right right but one of the things I I

35:10 right but one of the things I I consistently am starting to remind even my team of right is when you go and talk to folks and you’re like how when we talk about our audience and when you’re going to like engage like what are you guys thinking of how can we make that a better experience and yes more often than not it immediately falls into technical right people need to pause and we talk about empathy put yourself in the end user’s seat right with those questions like when you’re trying to

35:40 questions like when you’re trying to answer why are you looking at this report what are the things you needed to tell you tell you because if you don’t understand that from the get-go you’re not you’re probably not going to build the right thing you’re exactly right value of doing it though allows us as report authors to sit there and solve some of these problems as we’re going through this like these steps of what what’s the best visualization what’s the best way I want to lay this out because I’m putting my I’ve I’ve got you

36:12 I’m putting my I’ve I’ve got you answered all these questions for me you’ve given me your thresholds you’ve you’ve like told me exactly what you need and I understand how you’re going to use the report so all of a sudden intuitively I’m choosing things that are slicers instead of filters I’m putting visuals on a page I’m building interactions that might be complex to some users but it’s a perfect use case because you wanted to see these things in this way and this is going to be the fastest way for you to do that right like and I don’t think many people spend enough time in that empathetic range

36:43 enough time in that empathetic range right with the tools of like pointed questions actions themes thresholds Etc that allow you to get that context and push you out of a mindset where it’s just data I’m just presenting it yeah and I think that also frames what we measure where rather than like show me the number of widgets we’ve built or we we produce what’s the cost of a bad widget what’s the cost of not producing a widget at the right time and that’s also becomes its own measurement and also really important once you Frame

37:14 and also really important once you Frame It That Way rather than we’ve built a thousand widgets well you’ve two thousand widgets were faulty what’s the cost of those widgets that becomes very important to the that audience where what are we wasting now and again and I think that goes back to the empathy of yes we can build what you said but what are you really trying to get at again what are you really trying to answer and a lot of a lot of stakeholders I find will try to ask questions directly like in the box of the report and not think outside like

37:44 the report and not think outside like well what are we really trying to answer not I need a bar chart or I need to see trending I hear that all the time can we just see how what our sales over the last two years yeah but what’s that helping you answer there’s more questions there okay so here’s here’s the random thought and yes it’s close it’s a little past the half hour mark as the brain wakes up is it this toy toy is something man tickle tickles my brain right oh that’s my favorite is it the responsibility of

38:15 my favorite is it the responsibility of the bi team to identify the type of report that it is out there in the wild right like if we look if we were gonna stack rank the the number of users interacting with reports in the organization right like could is it the bi team’s responsibility to say hey this one’s just reporting the news right like if we look at the different levels of the type of reporting that we could have right I’m reporting the news this one like this level would dive

38:45 this one like this level would dive deeper and provide these better insights this one gives more predictive or prescriptive type information to the end user I almost feel like that’s a part of our responsibility in in the cue where we’re like or in this data culture where we’re identifying this and then teaching our teams that just because you have a report doesn’t mean that that’s like the end state of of how much value you can get out of this

39:15 get out of this right so should should there be a process where we’re pushing like folks to think about their business in another level so that if we can start to do forecasting if we can start to do like more of the advanced back end back end ETL structures to provide a a more robust experience for business units that like we do that obviously you’re not doing it everywhere but there are certain audiences that

39:46 but there are certain audiences that like I don’t think of I don’t think of my process in those terms right like we’ve talked a little bit about and where this idea comes from is like we talked a little bit about an end user coming in and they have no idea what they want okay let’s get some data it’s in the page NATO report right right I’ve thought about my data a little bit we’re having this conversation I can

40:05 bit we’re having this conversation I can provide value to you in this report because you actually have some actions that come out of questions you have right and this is where we dovetail into understanding thresholds and like how can we make a meaningful report to you but I don’t think about it as like okay that we’re in level two now you’re you’re an end user and I’m gonna I’m gonna put a check mark here I’m gonna say I’m gonna come back and in this conversation keep thinking about your in your data and we’ll do the same and we’ll see if we can enhance

40:35 we’ll see if we can enhance this or provide even better insights for you in the future is it worth it yes I I actually just Mike is Mike Mike is Mike is on the fence I’m just it so I think I’m a bit more on the fence on this one just because because I I think it’s worth it because you’re trying to evolve the data culture of the company in general and that’s that’s the context that’s yeah I think I think that part is worth it however I think art is is everyone in your organization there to fully

41:06 your organization there to fully comprehend or understand or incorporate into their workflow that additional level of questioning absolutely not I don’t think so I don’t think so either I think Alex Powers has dialed it right on the head here paginate everything for these users so I also I also feel like too like get out of here let’s get out of here of here I think this is a chicken before the egg thing Mike I think where does this start in terms of how do you get those people on board then I think Seth’s point is

41:36 on board then I think Seth’s point is actually helping shape the culture yes but I don’t think you shape everyone’s culture all at once I think I think it starts within that there are a few people people and I know that’s not what you’re saying but I’m saying like I feel like the the threshold of individuals being able to really dive in deep and and to be able to go to like okay let’s start figuring out what does prediction things look like what what deeper analytical questions should we be asking of ourselves but I think those questions are also you have to be very comfortable with where you’re at

42:06 comfortable with where you’re at currently and some people are just unwilling or not wanting to take that extra hunger or thirst or need to get to that next level of things so I think it’s very dependent on the people but let me let me rephrase my question right because it’s in the context of a bi team in in data culture right if I as a bi team don’t even have this as part of my process and that’s what I’m asking is should should it be part

42:37 I’m asking is should should it be part of my process that the reports my team is building should always have an enhancement path or we’ve checked off and said yeah we can’t really take this any further with the data sets that we have have and and I guess eventually lead other business units to understand like this is how we think about our reporting like our reporting scheme or our process of things because like there can be a ton of value in taking it to

43:08 can be a ton of value in taking it to that to that next level agreed but it is not every use case I’m just saying I haven’t thought about that in it like I haven’t thought about this in adding it as part of my process or things to like go enhance and look for new opportunities of existing reports that have been created or built I think I think my feeling here is your mileage will vary right I think there are some reports that you will be able to do that with and do it very successfully I think I think you could go into some reports

43:38 I think you could go into some reports and say yeah I could clearly see if we had this XYZ additional data this report could get so much more impactful we could do much better prediction on things things and I feel I feel like those type of reporting pieces make a lot of sense there are other reports that I think we don’t need to provide recommendations to so I again I I feel like it’s it’s not an all-encompassing scenario I think you might be spending extra money or dollars or time to be able to produce this for every report and I would only use

44:08 every report and I would only use selectively pick a couple of the most impactful reports or where you felt like you could move the needle right like for example like if we were I don’t know like like this is where the size of the impact I think to me matters right if I’m able to build reporting that’s going to be able to 2x our Revenue heck yeah we should spend all our time doing that but if I’m spending a lot of time building reports or working on things that are going to just save us a thousand bucks where we’re trying to make millions like it’s it’s a scaling thing

44:39 like it’s it’s a scaling thing right it where does the size of the impact lives I think the benefit’s not just direct Revenue I think there’s two benefits to the the what Seth is saying one it changes for those people the expectations of what the bi team does and also the way they’re perceiving measurements rather than build a bar chart we’ll build a bar chart now there’s a way okay we’re going to measure this we’re going to monitor this does this have any impact for you it changes I want this build this then we’re done move on and that’s the normal process so it excuse leadership from the

45:09 process so it excuse leadership from the bi team where you need the right people in place but you’re also changing the way they’re perceiving data because we’re going to say hey you said you want to see sales over the last two years based on our conversation we think you want to actually see who’s actually you want to actually see who’s actually missing a call or the know missing a call or the opportunities let’s monitor this new way to look at this and this is how we want you to look at this if you find impact we’re going to review this in two weeks not only I think does this provide like should there be a a

45:40 this provide like should there be a a story for this there should be a budget or resources for this way of where our relationship with the business oh man this is good maybe no maybe okay so I I as I said in the ideas it was like tickling my brain sort your your most used reports right so like Mike you honed in on that absolutely biggest impact yeah let’s go for big companies but only the biggest impact stuff right I I agree I I agree it would be a small subset I’m just

46:12 it would be a small subset I’m just saying in this conversation I’m not I’m now gonna actually look for those opportunities where I think yeah I was like oh yeah well we’ll just like is that being requested by the person and more often than not that’s not going to be right no it won’t be they don’t have they don’t know it yeah right they don’t know that’s what we can do or that’s even part of it they again they think build a report here’s a bar chart build a line chart rather than coming in with it like well let’s help you measure something else rather than just total sales maybe I’ve been a consultant for too long because because I feel like there’s a mix of this too right there’s a part of this that is yes on to some

46:43 a part of this that is yes on to some degree yes I agree through Tommy like we should be pushing the boundaries and showing you here is what is possible hey by the way what you’re describing here sounds like a metrics and we’re going to build something with metrics and we’re going to track things over time and by the way we can build reports on top of metrics and all the other like there’s good things that happen there on the other side though I think there is a level of reporting that is just mechanical in nature it’s just it’s just we just we’ve just had to report these numbers and I think this speaks to the topic of is

47:13 speaks to the topic of is saving money in those processes yeah exactly are you saving are you yeah are you are you is this an is this a process that is that is we need access to the data or do I need insights on data and I think anytime we’re talking about insightful reporting to your point Seth I think those ones yeah we spend a little bit of extra time and hopefully as we get more familiar with the data the reporting the needs of that business unit we can then more aptly recommend those things I just am hesitant to spend copious amounts of time on that if we don’t feel

47:43 amounts of time on that if we don’t feel like it would make large amounts of impact marginal amount of time though to do this it is extra time but I don’t think it’s double the effort oh man so let me tell you right there and trying this methodology out it’s a heck of a lot easier to do to the consultant because there’s already an expectation of what the bi team is okay okay consultant they go oh you’re a consultant you must know what you’re talking about in this in this I was like

48:14 talking about in this in this I was like yeah I’m like oh I hear what’s going on here like we have three levels of reporting in our organization one is the one you request the second is the enhancements we make and then the third is we just call them my car consultant [Laughter] I thought of what hearing here was what I feel like it was saying what I feel like I was hearing like this is fine and dandy like in my mind I’m thinking Consultants do this all the time they show in be like here’s the here everyone goes Taos what

48:44 here’s the here everyone goes Taos what is the art of the possible and do like these these amazing things like as as someone who’s a bystander someone on the outside of the politics of the company it’s very easy to come and be like yeah this doesn’t work yeah this is not impactful this is not helping he knows what he’s talking about but I think internal to the companies I think it’s a bit more challenging because it you do there’s a lot more political power there there’s a lot more internal stuff that’s occurring so again you’re you’re trying to do as an internal to a company you’re trying to do two things add value and you’re trying to make sure

49:14 add value and you’re trying to make sure that you are doing your job successfully so like if if you are spending so much extra time working on things that are not directly adding value or it will add value but they don’t see the story they can’t they’re not being sold the story it’s much harder to convince people to spend that extra money or dollars and I think your comment taught me around funding there should be like I think it is a great idea to have an organization spend some level of money or investment around making sure this is impactful because

49:45 impactful because doing data things well drives better business period it data drives all of this however I don’t think a lot of organizations or maybe the leaders and organizations don’t see the value in the spend on those areas and therefore we fall back into this maybe bad habit of okay just give me my report just pop it out let’s just count the number of

50:06 out let’s just count the number of reports we make because that means we’re making value I think there’s a story and just from the internal side I’ve had people who really latched on to this idea we’re going to create this evolving measurement and people who got offended by this because they wanted what they wanted wanted but I think you can you can frame the story from a cost point of view internally we had a product that we were launching and it was like well they just want to see the overall sales but shouldn’t we measure if how much we put into this new product what the success is going to be and we built this time in

50:37 is going to be and we built this time in terms of how much time we’re going to spend building these new measurements they say if people can make these better decisions what would that actually be the like what value would there be modify it quantify it does this report make you money or save you money and like you can I don’t build it unless it does those things it’s not so much I think identifying the reports you want to do this to it’s identifying the teams or maybe projects coming up okay I like that I like going higher level than just records I like going Team level things I think it’s you have a team coming they’re doing a migration is this a good candidate to try this new methodology

51:07 candidate to try this new methodology out where hey what’s the we’re going to measure rather than minutes completed or what’s the cost of not doing it or what’s the cost what’s the value of doing this on time whatever we’re trying to trying to identify the thresholds with the team and you can quantify that if you can say something’s good or bad you can measure it you can quantify it there’s a podcast that came out of the last two minutes here that we need to add to the roster here which is if I was if I was gonna like

51:37 if I was gonna like throw a title on it here’s your million dollar idea Here Comes Consulting in a consultant in a company versus Consulting in your own company we’ve done something similar I don’t think so we did a Consulting versus internal internal did we yeah yeah that’s interesting because a lot of the points that you guys were just making is is revolve around Consultants can come into a company and it it by default it’s the business value

52:08 it it by default it’s the business value over everything else but what happens in a lot of like and we call it politics in an organization yep like there are a lot of of ftes that make decisions for that that are focused on me right oh yeah yeah yeah this is this is why it’s it’s challenging to get some things done in an organization absolutely so but that’s a that’s another so Simon sinek talks a lot about this as well if there’s a culture inside the company where you are continually running around

52:39 where you are continually running around cya trying to cover yourself there’s so much more energy wasted on just making sure that my head’s down I’m going to be able to retain the company I stay here and and they they don’t they’re you’re not willing to be the nail that pops above because the hammer will come down and pound in the nail I’m gonna have to re-look if we talked about this before I don’t know 91. RBI worlds in-house work man yeah but that’s but this is slightly different different it was 100 we’ll see we’ll see

53:11 it was 100 we’ll see we’ll see I’m sure it’s different by now we’ll have to go back and listen to it I’m sure evolved since then Mike what does Chachi PT think about this topic oh you Chachi PT think about this topic oh what I’ve been I haven’t I did not know what I’ve been I haven’t I did not do it on Tuesday I think I missed it I’ll we keep talking I think I have to spin it up here Rafael’s on the same page right at the start time is me it’s time shut up shut up guys there’s a mini experiment happening right now that you have no idea to the end and I’ll tell you what it is a mini experiment happening oh

53:41 experiment happening oh I’m enthralled enthralled or intrigued both and both I’m both of them why can’t can we podcasters you’ll see you’ll see It’ll be at the end oh boy I think Tommy’s been word counting the word what is that GPT thing all right so so what’s the question we need to prompt here communication

54:12 what is data communication vanilla vanilla how do I how do I better data Community how do we how do we how do you communicate with data in an organization how do you how do you communicate with data tell me tell me three tips that make you three tips that make you communicate better with data you are emailing data person here’s what I want you to do oh you are the you are the lead bi engineer at your company tell me what your top three initiatives are

54:43 okay you should just have a hackathon with ask chat TV team what the answers are what are the top three best ways to communicate about data that’s why Mike is doing that I I do I do want to give a shout out to Kat once again I think go check out the article did we paste that in there that that elicited this whole Twitter thread I’ll put that in here now it’s it’s it’s reinforcing a lot of great things about how do we communicate information she gives some really good tips towards the end for folks that are

55:15 tips towards the end for folks that are new to thinking about audiences thinking about how we produce reporting of value not just for ourselves but for others and we we love not only talking about like hopefully some of what people wrote Because we always go on a side track right yeah but love love promoting folks that we find on the on the interwebs we don’t do interviews but this would be someone out of the interview because I love I love the way this was framed it was fun so if

55:46 the way this was framed it was fun so if you don’t know so she runs Rogue penguin which I guess is out of her own business out of New Zealand came from an analyst position and and moved into this whole data visualization space a while ago so the most pressing question here are there penguins in New Zealand is that a thing ask that gpg I don’t know about that one all right what do we got so the question is what are the top three best ways to communicate about data the three things that came back from chat GPT were number one visualizations the most effective way is

56:17 visualizations the most effective way is to communicate through a data visualization such as a chart graph and or map I would argue you’d probably mix the map I’m glad I didn’t say pie chart because that would have been that would have been a a score of one for my for my opinion if we had a pie chart in there storytelling another effective way to communicate through the data storytelling this involves narratives contextualizing the data and helping the auto understand its significance okay the last one is contextualization big word it also provides an essential it is also essential to provide context when

56:48 also essential to provide context when Community about data this involves explaining the data’s background and the methods used to collect and analyze it that seems very scientific in nature because that’s what you do a lot of like in research papers and things as well so I also added a follow-up question what is data communication and it answered by data communication refers to the process of transmitting and receiving data between queen or two or more devices or systems talking about like wireless networks or local area networks the data communication process is involving several key components the

57:18 involving several key components the source of data the transmission and the receiver I think that was a better statement right there because if you’re building if we’re building reports right the report has three things right the source of the data transmission of the data and the receiver of the data if you think about those three pieces whether it’s data through a wire or data through your report that’s what you’re doing you’re building out those three areas of communicating to the next person about that information

57:50 this is a pretty weak one at this point maybe the question wasn’t prompted very well which I really love this one I’d probably give it like if we’re doing seven or ten Tommy what’s the scale what do you think you say seven all right so I’ll give it like a five it’s about a mid mid five out of seven five out of seven Seth Seth three out of ten you caught on I give it a two out of seven I thought that’s gonna go like out of a thousand like I’m gonna give it a you

58:20 thousand like I’m gonna give it a you thousand like I’m gonna give it a 527 out of 1000. know 527 out of 1000. yeah so the points are made up the scale is arbitrary No actually that’s the experiment so I’ve been I’ve been preaching the the one out of seven scale this is a show you can measure and value anything or you can measure anything differently or perceive anything differently one out of seven is very different from one out of ten you’re already catching on the one out of seven or the one out of seven scale yeah you ask me yeah I did so we can

58:50 ask me yeah I did so we can measure things and value things differently this goes the whole now we’ve wrapped the whole thing up well this podcast is definitely a seven after that comment so let’s get out of seven this this seven seven so with that we thank you all very much for listening to podcast you burn through a perfectly good hour with us we appreciate your time your listenership everyone everyone’s giving scores now in the chat window 1. 5 to 7. 75 yeah I like it too so give us your score throw it in the chat window [Laughter]

59:20 [Laughter] I like it Community you are awesome we really appreciate you very much for participating this has been a lot of fun and then we’ll catch you next time so our only ask of for this very free podcast and this very good waste of your hour of your day is if you wouldn’t mind share it to somebody else so they can burn a perfectly good hour as well maybe walking maybe you aren’t trying to fall asleep cook some dinner or something like that something that’s mundane maybe we can give you a couple laughs as we go along here and talk about data Tommy where else can you find the podcast go ahead and give us a high measurement in Raiders on Spotify

59:50 high measurement in Raiders on Spotify and apple helps us out a ton you can join us every Tuesday and Thursday 7 30 a. m Central on the power bi tips social media channels or subscribe and listen to all of our previous 211 episodes excellent thank you all very much and we’ll catch you next time

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