Mastering the Preparation Stage
When you apply for The Data School and navigate through the application process, you'll need to present two application dashboards: one during the initial phone screening and another one during your final in-person interview.
As a data analyst, presenting your dashboards is a skill you'll use regularly. It's good practice to master these presentations right from the beginning of your journey.
In this 2-part blog series, I'll guide you through how I prepared my presentations and provide some general tips and best practices for giving a presentation like this.
The Brainstorming Phase
Start by making a list of the most important information about your dashboard. This will help you brainstorm your presentation script later:
Some questions to get you started could be:
- What were you trying to find out?
- How did you approach your data analysis?
- Why did you choose those specific charts?
- What's interesting about the data?
- Who is your target audience?
- Why will the dashboard help them?
I prefer putting all my thoughts on paper without worrying too much about the structure. I organize them only after I feel I've expressed what I wanted to say.
When choosing the order of a presentation, it's helpful to keep some storytelling methods in mind. A good introduction, middle, and end enhance the presentation.
In this specific case, when presenting a dashboard, it generally helps to follow the flow of the charts on it. Jumping all over the place would be distracting, and following what's already on the dashboard also serves as a visual guide to help you memorize your next sentences.
Another tip is to write in simple sentences. Sometimes, people listening to presentations may not be very literate in data topics, so it's best to avoid too many buzzwords.
Crafting the Flow of Your Presentation
Now we'll look into the flow of our presentation and how to structure it for maximum impact.
Structuring Your Script
(Disclaimer: The following structure is my personal preference, not the one perfect way to do it. However, I think it makes the presentation very easy to listen to.)
Introduction
- Welcome the audience first.
- Give a short introduction to your dataset and what the data represents.
- Talk about the target audience and how the analysis will help them.
- Give a very short summary of your presentation, for example a general overview of the different sections you are talking about.
Analysis Sections
- Give a short summary of the important sections of your dashboard.
- Don't just show every chart, give a description of the results of your analysis or the most interesting things you discovered.
- Give recommendations for specific actions resulting from these findings – always make it applicable to the target audience.
Conclusion & Recommendations
- Conclude the presentation with a short summary.
- Once again, repeat your key findings.
- Give your top recommendations and next action steps to take.
- Thank the audience for their attention.
- Ask if there are any questions.
In part 2 of this series I'll give you some general tips for rehearsing and finally giving your presentations, you can find it right here!