A Spotify Data Scientist’s Guide to Turning Your Insights into Impactful Actions | by Khouloud El Alami | Jul, 2023

Remember that deep-dive research I mentioned earlier?

It caught the interest of the VP in my experience area, so my manager and I had to ensure the story flowed seamlessly and made complete sense before presenting it.

We spent a long time on this because every detail had to be data-backed — anything we said could influence impactful decisions.

When presenting your insights to decision-makers, storytelling skills makes the ultimate difference between whether they’ll end up in the leaderboard or the trash

After immersing yourself in a subject for weeks or months, it becomes challenging to distinguish what’s truly valuable to share from what’s not. Learning how to pick out important parts of the data and tie them back to suggestions for the product, and then persuade decision-makers to take action is a crucial skill.

Successful presentations are a result of both skillful delivery and strategic curation of relevant and compelling content

At this point, you know what you want to talk about to your stakeholders. But do you know how to talk about it?

If you’re a junior, chances are you don’t. Even the most senior Data Scientists in Tech are still honing this skill.

These are the storytelling skills I acquired while preparing my presentation for the VP’s review

First and foremost, make sure that you understand the business goals, main strategic lines, focus areas of the company, and how your project aligns with them.

This will make you create a non-siloed story. Something connected with the living ecosystem of your company. Your research is not a standalone piece of work. It’s meant to contribute to a broader mission and vision.

Clearly articulate in your presentation how your work directly aligns with this overarching goal.

Slide 1 — Executive Summary

It gives an overview of your work and includes a summary of key insights and recommendations. It sets expectations for your audience.

This should typically include:

Key insight, number, or idea that sums up the issue at handResearch objective + Methods used to reach this goalOne chart illustrating the key statistic driving the researchBullet points of the key insights and recommendations