Exercise $6\mathrm{.}11$: evolve from report to story

Dashboards and regular reporting $($weekly$,$ monthly, quarterly$)-$ we can use these tools as one way to explore our data and figure out what could be interesting, worth highlighting, or digging into further. There can also be great value from a self$-$service standpoint of sharing reports with end users, who can then use them to answer their many individual questions, freeing up your time for more interesting analysis.

But too often, we share dashboards or reports meant for exploration when really we should be taking it a step further, making it clear to our audience what they should focus on and what they should do with the information we share.

Examine Figure $6\mathrm{.}11,$ which shows a page from a monthly report on ticket volume and related metrics. Then complete the following steps.

STEP $1$: Let's start by practicing putting it into words. Write a sentence describing a takeaway for each graph in the report shown in Figure $6\mathrm{.}11.$

STEP $2$: Do we need all of this data? It may be important to look at all of these things as we are exploring the data, but not all of the data is necessarily equally interesting when it comes to communicating it to our audience. Imagine you need to tell a story with this data: which parts of the report would you focus on and which $($if any$)$ would you omit?

STEP $3$: Download the data and create graphs and$/$or slides to tell a visual story with the elements you selected to include in Step $2.$ How would you show the data? How will you incorporate words? Create your preferred visuals. Decide whether you'll present live or send the information off to be consumed on its own. Optimize your approach for the scenario you've chosen, making assumptions as necessary for the purpose of this exercise.