8 Simple data strategy tips

Every report, dashboard or data communication should be considered. Sometimes there are opportunities to combine reports if there is enough overlap.

Questions we ask our clients:

1. What do you need to show?Trended data over time, comparisons to previous similar scenarios (weeks, months, launches etc.)
2. Who is your audience?CEOs will need different data from Team leaders.
3. How often do you need the data?Is this a one-off or something that will need additional set-up to be run regularly?
4. How will the data be used?We’ve seen people take reports and then use those statistics to create other reports; if possible, ask for the finished product.
5. Does this report already exist? Are you re-inventing the wheel, updating an existing report, or adding to it for another audience, or is this an oversight and would cause duplication?

You may often hear, “We are only doing this once; we don’t need it again”. This could be true, but I have seen people use this excuse for product launching statistics and reports.

If you compare Product200 to Product199, why not set something up where all you need to do is alter a few drop downs to repeat this for Product200 to Product198 or Product201 to Product200?

The possibilities are endless. In this case, make sure the relevant fields you will need are in the data for the report and add the relevant dropdowns.

Your stakeholders may not appreciate the extra hour required, but they’ll thank you later when it saves time entering new criteria.

Consider if it will only take 20 mins now to save you from starting from scratch and remembering what you were doing next time.

It may seem dull but it can be very useful to document things for several reasons:

• Training and Upskilling
• Diagrams explaining Data relationships, Schemas etc.
• Keep notes on reasoning behind developments of key stats/reports
• All things to do with compliance within the sector of the data you manipulate
• Who will have access to what and why

These can help when working on improvements months or even years after initial development, as well as checking why processes do what they do, who has signed off on decisions, what stakeholders were consulted, and when. Also, this will cover yourself if ‘goal posts’ are moved.

Who needs what, and how often? 

Thinking about this can help you prioritise what to automate/improve first and how to provide the correct level of access to each user group, and define how often reports will need to be refreshed. 

Depending on the systems utilised, there can be multiple ways of restricting access.

Consider implementing the following:

• User Groups
• Implement passwords
• Set up new users, not overwriting them when they no longer need access

The important thing is to monitor these and agree on cadences for checking if users leave/start in the business.

Where is your data coming from and where is it going?

1. How is your data collected before processing and how manual is this process?
   With the help of your IT team, it’s possible to streamline Data from External sources, automate running of some of the processes mentioned in the section below
2. If your distributing with Powerpoint/Excel etc. will this clog up emails/folder space?
   Sending out lots of emails will fill an inbox; having large spreadsheets or presentations on PowerPoint can do the same with your folder space. Using front ends like PowerBi or Tableau can save this space and lock down reports similarly to folder structures, meaning that all reports can be set up with the most recent stats processed.

From Raw to Report

Taking a process that can take a few hours and reducing it to minutes can be time-consuming, but the advantages of it are not just linked to timesaving.

 This is the area we’ve seen the most significant improvements that can be made. If there is a manual process with repeatable steps every time you run it, then there are ways to reduce these.

Do you have to collate data from multiple sources? Try finding a way to connect the data sources to allow you to alter data at the source, and update the data that feeds from it as efficiently as possible.

Some Ideas

• Dragging formulas in Excel – Create a macro
• Lots of calculations in Excel, refreshing pivot tables – move the ‘heavy lifting‘ into a less visual based format e.g. SQL
• Refreshing lots of Graphs and Charts – look into a durable ‘front end‘ like PowerBi or Tableau

Figures from different sources not adding up to the total they should?

Due to unclear (or undocumented) working methods, there can sometimes be issues with figures not adding up to a total.

A real example of this is teams being responsible for their statistics. Minor errors or inconsistencies can result in issues when totalling figures or unfair comparisons between teams doing similar tasks.

 e.g., Sales teams’ conversion figures.

On outbound sales calls, Team 1 could base it on the following:

Sales number/ connected calls

But Team 2 base it on the following:

Sales number/ connected calls to none answer phones

There could be very little difference depending on what you’re selling, but this differential could be the critical variance for the top salesperson/team. It could also affect forecasting, targets and KPI measures.

If all the data comes from/through one source, then if you’ve set things up appropriately, there will be fewer issues from explaining every time numbers don’t ‘seem right’.

There are always ways to improve things.

A bonus to implementing the above principles, even in just one set of reports, creates the beginning of a snowball effect, leaving you with more time to make further improvements and create more insightful dashboards.

Re-assessing your work makes sure it’s relevant, optimised and documented.