Tell Me A Story! Communicating Insights With Impact

This is the final part of our six part series exploring the 7 deadly sins of product discovery where we delve into insight communication. If you haven’t yet, check out part 5 of the series – So What? Identifying Insight And Impact From Discovery a discussion on identifying insight from discovery research.

It is no use having amazing discovery insights if no one else knows or cares about them! This is the last deadly sin of discovery, and it relates to how we communicate discovery insights. Obviously, it starts with sharing discovery insights across the business and not hoarding them in the product team. But beyond this, there is the more challenging problem of how to communicate insights with impact. Here the symptom is when insights are shared within the business they fall flat with a dull thud. No one cares to act.

While action can sometimes be about the right timing and planning, the most common reason that discovery insight falls on deaf ears has to do with how insights are communicated. Communicating insight with impact is a skillset that few naturally possess and it requires concerted effort to develop – particularly avoiding the trap I like to call data babble.

Data Babble vs Discovery Stories

Very few of us are ever told how to communicate complex data and insights, so we must figure it out ourselves. For those of us that are not natural storytellers, communicating data usually looks something like this:

• Getting deep in the details, explaining copious volumes of complex data and graphs
• Focusing on explaining the collection process to convince people we were rigorous
• Showing all the findings, even when not relevant, just not to “leave it out” in case someone finds it interesting (and maybe to show how hard we worked)
• Showing findings that are personally interesting, but maybe not insightful for the business – perhaps to support our personal point of view (e.g., one customer said… which I found interesting even though no one else said it)

These are all symptoms of what I affectionately call data babble: when too much focus is given to the data or findings over the insights that reveal business impacts and opportunities. Data babble is the primary method of communicating data in business, even amongst some seasoned professionals that deal primarily in data (looking at you finance), so we should not feel like it is just product teams that struggle to communicate insights with impact. However, data babble risks losing the audience, leading to inaction on discovery insights and the perception of wasted time and effort in discovery.

The solution to data babble is to consciously turn our discovery insights into ‘discovery stories’ that champion business relevant insight over the process and findings of discovery data collection & analysis. This requires practice. Few people do this naturally, but there are a few tips to follow when forming your discovery stories:

• Answer “so what” as fast as possible – why should I care? Make the point right from the start: what is the critical importance of the insight within the current business context? Avoid making insights sound like something that only impacts the distant future and find the burning platform now!
• Remember relevance over completeness – the best stories focus on communicating relevant and impactful insights and don’t get caught up in giving “the complete picture” of all that was found. Rarely will all insights be impactful within the current business context and including irrelevant insights can derail the cohesiveness of a message.
• Practice being concise while maintaining clarity – even if you had 20 minutes, how would you communicate the insight in 2 minutes? Few of us have the natural communication skill of brevity when communicating complex concepts, so we need to challenge ourselves. Try to restrict yourself to a shorter and shorter timeframe to clearly “pitch” the insights, even if you know you will have longer.
• Focus on appropriate language – if discovery insights are going to change the way we do business, they have to be communicated in the language of our business. Trouble is product teams often have their own unique language (even the word ‘discovery’ is a product word). Make sure you adapt your language to the audience and avoid having to explain language that is not well understood, substitute it where possible.
• Invite questions and meaningful discussion – inviting questions and meaningful discussion during insight storytelling can be a powerful way to drive action and meaning for the stakeholders in the room. But it needs to be carefully managed so as not to derail the story. This can be a tricky one, and something to try as you get more comfortable with your storytelling style. Include questions or discussions with the audience as part of the story or even call out people you know have a unique perspective.
• Tailor stories to the audience – it is tempting to think of our audience as one cohort (if we think of them at all), but considering stakeholder perspectives, goals and even temperaments separately can reveal powerful ways to increase relevance to individual stakeholders. This is most important to consider for stakeholders who have outsized power in decision making or who are likely to be particularly interested in the insight. How would you change your story to appeal to these stakeholders better? By practicing telling multiple versions of your story, you can build more flexible and tailored communication and identify differences and commonalities across stakeholders.

Rarely do we spend enough time considering how we communicate discovery insights. By practicing and trying different techniques in your storytelling, you can improve your skills for communicating with greater impact. But there is one last thing to consider specifically when communicating discovery data and that is what is your call to action?

Call To Action

Ultimately the goal of discovery should be to drive action on insights. This means you should explicitly identify and call out the action to be taken off the back of this insight. Is it a decision? Is it an investment? Is it something else?

Often discovery communications fall flat when they are treated as “interesting” with no follow-up. It can mean that insights are quickly forgotten and discovery is seen as a luxury, not a necessity. While one problem is no action taken on discovery, the other side is if your followup action is too often ‘do more discovery’. In this case, you might be in an endless discovery loop! Take care and check out our article on effective planning to avoid endless discovery.

Making Product The Powerhouse Of Value Discovery

In order for product teams to build business confidence in product discovery, we must avoid the most common pitfalls of ineffective discovery practice – the 7 deadly sins. Key to this shifting the mindset from seeing discovery as a ‘product process’ to seeing it instead as a commercial activity to maximise advantage and decrease risk for the business. By targeting discovery with a plan and business objectives, creating impactful insights contextualised within business goals and focusing on impactful discovery communication, it is possible to magnify the value of product discovery in the business and make the product team a powerhouse of business value discovery and delivery.