Each project arrives with its purpose, milestones and first tasks written out. Here is how the first three read.
Audience and decision brief before any analysis
Before a single chart is drawn, write down who will see the work, what they already believe and which decision it should inform. Analysts who skip this step end up with twenty accurate charts and no point, because the material was organised around the data rather than the question. A half-page brief takes fifteen minutes and decides what to cut later.
First tasks
- Draft a half-page brief template with audience, decision, belief and deadline fields
- Fill in the brief for the analysis you are working on now
- Send the brief to the requester and ask them to correct it
- Strike any planned chart that does not serve the confirmed decision
One-sentence big idea for each piece of work
Audiences remember one thing from a presentation, so it is worth choosing that thing deliberately. Writing the main message as a single complete sentence, with a subject, a verb and a so-what, forces you to commit to a point of view before you open the slide software. If the sentence will not come, the analysis is not finished yet.
First tasks
- Write the main message of your current analysis as one sentence
- Cut the sentence to 25 words or fewer without losing the so-what
- Say the sentence to a colleague and ask them to repeat it back
- Put the sentence at the top of the deck or memo
Personal chart style guide
Charts made on different days in different tools drift apart in font, colour and label style, and an audience reads that inconsistency as carelessness. A two-page style guide covering fonts, sizes, gridlines, label placement, number formats and when to use each colour makes every chart look like it came from the same careful hand. It also halves the time spent fiddling with formatting.
First tasks
- Collect five recent charts you made and note every inconsistency
- Write rules for fonts, gridlines, legends and number formats
- Rebuild three of the charts to the new rules
- Check the guide against your latest charts and update it @recurring(quarterly)
