Using Data for Storytelling

With an example on how we did it

I used to think that storytelling was about, you know, telling short stories. Like how three arrows are stronger than one or something else. Although I see how those stories can make an impact, it never felt natural to say to the team.

On the other hand, using storytelling to constaly create why’s is the difference between just doing busy work and creating purpose.

Luckily we don’t need an arsenal of memorized short stories to be able to be great at storytelling. We just need data.

They talk about this in the book Product Operations:

“Data tells a story. Well, maybe not the data itself, but in the hands of an experienced product manager who knows how to extract the right data for the right audience, it can be the difference between listening to an improv show, where there’s no consistent theme or plot, and a Best Picture winner at the Oscars.”

Example on data = storytelling

When we started to focus on onboarding, there where many things we could do. With that, we quickly saw three data points that stuck out.

1. In a survey taken on home loan owners, the third reason to not change bank was “too much hassle to change” with 33%.
2. Norwegians are users in 1.7 banks on avg, and the trend is growing.
3. The conversions on onboarded users for 9 key products was lower and slower per month than you’d expect (Of course, I can’t share those numbers)

You can use those numbers alone to create multiple stories. Here’s one:

“Onboarding is one of the most important thing we must focus on now. When home loan owners was asked what was the reason they didn’t want to change banks, the third reason (1), behind good enough rate and didn’t see any reason, was simply that it was too much work to do the change.

And if we actually get them over, the numbers on conversion is suprisingly low (3). It shows that onboarding isn’t something that magically happens, because people have so many options with banking that it has become a battle of the apps (2).

This is why we will make SpareBank 1 the first choise! (2) It’s not important for us to be the only bank, because those days are over, but we will make it so easy to come up to speed that users want to keep taking active choices in the app and stay.

We measure this by:

• Increasing product range (3)
• Increasing activity (3)
• Removing pains (1, 3)”

We’ve used this story over and over and over again both within the team, but also the company in whole and stakeholders in general. It has helped us to create focus, but also a clear why.

Data is everywhere. It just needs it’s story told.

Hey, you made it to the end! 🎉

P.S. If you want to read more about finding data, check out: Everyone can do strategy.

P.S.S. You can of course follow me on Medium, and Linkedin or Goodreads.

If you would like more stories like these, check out Failing Forward.