It’s a hard truth that the person who cares most about your work is you. Unfortunately, the reality of every working professional is that you’re a single voice, struggling to be heard in a sea of hundreds, perhaps tens of thousands. Whether you’re an engineer flagging a critical systems failure, or a CISO fighting for a bigger security budget, you need to be able to stand out from all the noise. 

But how do you actually do that?

I can tell you right now, it won’t be through your technical skills. The harsh reality is talking specifics will likely make people tune out, not tune in. The answer? Data storytelling.

(I’m sure this is a real shocker, given the title of the article.) 

Data storytelling is your ability to tell a story, one that’s backed by evidence. It’s a vital skill for getting people to:

• Pay attention to you
• Understand what you’re saying
• Be persuaded to your way of thinking
• Feel compelled to take action

And professionally? Data storytelling is key to landing jobs, raises, and promotions. After all, what’s an interview if not telling a persuasive story about yourself—backed by your own historical data?

Why data storytelling is psychologically effective

The people you’re trying to persuade are human beings (...presumably.) As humans, we’ve been telling stories since the Cro-Magnon era. We’ve ditched the clubs (unfortunately, we’ve got more effective sticks now) but we haven’t abandoned our love for stories over data. 

When we tell stories, the hormones released by a good story are known as the “Angel’s Cocktail”, made up of dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphins. These all make us more focused, emotionally bonded, and motivated–all things you want in your audience. On top of that, when we hear a story multiple parts of our brain are engaged, particularly our prefrontal cortex, which means stories are more likely to wind up in long-term memory. 

Comparing approaches: Raw information vs data storytelling

Below is an example of some raw information. It doesn’t seem very important, does it? 

Certainly, it’s the kind of thing that you could easily skim over, as it appears fairly boring and dry.

But…what if I told you NASA says there’s a greater than 3% chance that humanity will be obliterated by the asteroid shown below right before Christmas in 2023?

You’re paying attention now, aren’t you? However, they’re exactly the same story, just told in different ways. The first is using raw data, and the second is data storytelling. As a result, the latter has a deeper impact (pun intended). 

Note: The asteroid in question is Asteroid 2024 YR4, which dominated the news cycle last month.

How to be an effective data storyteller

Data storytelling will have three components: data (obviously), a narrative, and visualizations. In this article, I’m going to focus on the second and third elements, as these tend to be the parts people struggle with the most. 

1. First, recognize that everything you do is a story

Literally everything you do is an epic tale waiting to be told, even if it doesn’t seem that way. That includes things like: 

• The tickets you closed this quarter
• The feature release you just pushed
• The tool you just scoped for the team
• The new certificate you just obtained

Each one tells a tale about how you met customer needs, improved the product offering, kept your organization competitive, or continuously strove to be a better resource. 

Discover the thing you want to draw attention to, whether that’s a project, issue, or even yourself, and start thinking about it as a story, or even a series of stories. Ask yourself: If I were in the audience, what would make me care? This will make the foundation of your narrative.

2. Include the key story elements

A good story will typically have the following things: Characters, Settings, Conflict, and Resolution.

Characters

Every story needs people! Note down the key players involved. Defining them helps your audience relate and invest emotionally. 

Let’s take the movie Titanic. The movie follows Rose, a wealthy young woman, and Jack, a poor nomadic artist. Through their eyes, we become invested in the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912, even though it has no impact on us. Now, imagine if you just described the incident without these characters. The audience wouldn’t be nearly as invested! 

Your story has key characters as well. It might be you, your team, your executives, your vendors, or a notable customer. 

Setting

Context is everything. Your story should detail what is or was happening, including the when and where.

Going back to our Titanic example, the historic crash is told from a number of key locations. One example is the bridge, where it explains how the sailors managed to miss the iceberg. It also shows the cabins, sharing the human impact of the incident.

Your story will have similar details. These could be physical locations such as server rooms or field locations, or digital ones such as systems, product offerings, or websites. 

Conflict

Your story should highlight the root issue that needs (or needed) to be addressed. This problem or challenge creates urgency and makes people care about the outcome.

In Titanic, the root issue is the iceberg crash, and surviving the aftermath. Without mentioning this, you’d be describing a rather boring cruise with no real threat.

"This is what will happen if you don't give us more budget for staff." ~ Anonymous CISO

Identify the challenge or threat in your story. Is it a current or future iceberg—such as data loss, hardware failure, or a cybersecurity incident—or a past one that you’ve overcome against the odds? 

Resolution

This is the proposed or implemented solution, based on the data and story you present. This is why the story matters; backed by data, it ties everything together.

If you were in charge of a shipbuilding company immediately after the Titanic incident, you might finish telling your story—including the human cost—and explain how you could prevent ships sinking by having double bottom hulls and higher bulkheads so even if there’s an iceberg collision, water doesn’t get in the hull. Or, you could be sharing how you reduced sinking incidents by 95% year-over-year since you implemented these changes!

3. Identify the impact that people care about

Once you’ve identified what you want to talk about, and started to think about it as a story, now it’s time to think about your audience. You might be sitting upon a lot of data or events you could describe, but you need to distill it into the things people care about. If you don’t, you’ll overwhelm your listeners, and risk them tuning you out or coming away with the wrong conclusions.

Here are some methods you can use:

• Think about the role of your listeners, and what they care about. Is it staff efficiency, product excellence, reduced risk or costs, or some other motivational factor? 
• In an interview, what is the ideal staff member they’re looking for?
• In your chosen story, is there anything they’d care about? Is there a way to make them care about it, by connecting it indirectly to something they do care about? E.g. If they care about earnings, sharing data on how faster ticket closures saves the business money?

4. Find the human impact in the story

Let’s say you’re in charge of IoT devices for the utility sector, and you’ve recently deployed digital twinning and want leadership to care about it. Rather than go:

“Our digital twinning has allowed us to respond to outages 42% faster.” 

…You could instead talk about how when a power outage happens:

• Service teams would have to go out in the middle of the night to physically troubleshoot a fault, going back and forward if they don’t have the part, often at exorbitant cost.

• Customers are left without vital power during this time, particularly individuals who need the power for medical devices or other important items.

• Comms teams have to engage in damage control, monitoring social and putting out constant releases to mitigate brand risk.

Use key data points to back up this narrative, such as the time the outages last for, and how much it costs the business.

5. Use images and evoke imagery wherever possible

Our brains can process an image in as little as 13 milliseconds, which is considerably faster than you can talk (or should ever be talking.) On top of that, many people digest information visually rather than via speech, particularly if they’ve had a lot of long meetings that day.

Data storytelling is about helping your audience see the story. While charts and graphs are important, visualization can take many forms, such as diagrams, illustrations, or fun and simple photos.

For example, let's say you were telling the story of how you were responsible for cybersecurity for the Paris 2024 Olympics. You want to share the scale of work that was involved in protecting the games from nation-state level attacks. To do that, you might share images of the infrastructure that needs to be defended at these events (Venues, water, power, transport), the teams working behind the scenes, and iconic imagery of what you're protecting:

6. Assume your audience knows nothing

Don’t stuff your story full of acronyms, or assume your audience knows everything you’re talking about. Break things down to the most accessible level possible, and keep your language as simple as possible. Where possible, be conversational and accessible.

7. Structure your story properly (and don’t clash narratives)

When you tell a story, you need to have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Don’t jump around, or introduce a whole second story into the mix. Examples of this would be:

• If you talk about the solution before the problem is even introduced.

• If you tell a story about the need for a digital migration, only to segway into talking about unrelated customer trends or data points, only to return to your original topic.

8. Communicate the need for action, if applicable

Data storytelling is commonly used for turning data insights into action, but if you don’t call for any sort of action, then nothing is likely to happen. Also, don’t make the mistake of presenting data without any sort of resolution planned. 

One method to use is to give your preferred outcome, as well as a halfway step between nothing happening and your ideal scenario. 

Advanced Technique: Using the three appeals for your arguments

When you’re trying to persuade anyone of anything, there's typically only three ways you can do it. These are known as the three appeals, and they’re as old as Aristotle (because he came up with them). I’ve put this further down because while this is a powerful technique, it can tend to be a lot to absorb when you’re starting out with storytelling.

The three appeals are:

• Appeal to Emotion (Pathos): This is when you’re trying to win over your audience by stirring feelings of empathy. You can do this through storytelling, emotive language, or showing images people can relate to.
• Appeal to Logic (Logos): This is when you’re trying to support your argument using logic, reason, and proof. You can do this through statistics, references, and other research.
• Appeal to Credibility (Ethos): This is when you’re establishing trust based on credibility of yourself or your sources. You can do this through credentials, experience, or other forms of endorsement.

Most people are persuaded by one of these types of appeals, and so the best approach is to tick all three when you’re making an argument. Thankfully, this is why data storytelling is so potent! 

• It appeals to emotion by spinning a narrative, making people imagine and relate to what you’re talking about.
• It appeals to logic by taking your data, statistics, and other evidence.
• It appeals to credibility because your sources and personal experiences are trustworthy, and you’re delivering it with confidence.

Whenever you’re trying to persuade someone of something, always ask yourself: have I ticked all of these three boxes? 

Let’s loop back to the example I gave above with the asteroid:

“… What if I told you NASA says there’s a greater than 3% chance that humanity will be obliterated by the asteroid shown below right before Christmas in 2023?”

Can you identify the three appeals in that sentence?

• Appeal to emotion: Mentioning Christmas is an appeal to emotion, as most people can imagine themselves enjoying the holidays. The image of an asteroid, coupled with a description of it falling, are emotional storytelling techniques.
• Appeal to logic: The statistics add credibility to the argument, providing facts in the claim.
• Appeal to credibility: By citing NASA, a highly regarded organization regarding space matters, the claim is both credible and verifiable.

Conclusion

Data storytelling is an effective way to get people to notice and understand you, and then take the actions that you need them to. Without data storytelling, it can be hard to get traction internally or externally, making it a crucial soft skill for any professional, both in IT professions and outside of it.

If you’re ready to level up your data storytelling skills, check out Pluralsight’s Data Storytelling learning path, which covers everything from foundational concepts to advanced techniques.