How to Write a Concise Data Literacy/Data & Insights for Business Decisions Project | by Alexandria Harris
You have just ended another module workshop and your coach has announced the next project. You excitedly (or not!) log on to Applied to download the project brief. What will the key competency be this time? Using data validation techniques? Demonstrating organisational awareness? Or maybe, it’s automation?
You download the project brief and as you read the criteria and description, you begin to think of data sets or projects that would be perfect for this submission.
Data set secured; analysis completed.
You are ready to write up your project in the STAR format. There’s so much that you want to say but at the same time you know that you need to keep it to the point and relevant to the brief, as doing this will not only improve the readability of your project but also ensure that the information that you have provided is essential to the project criteria.
Here are a couple of practical tips you can use to keep things succinct:
- Stick to the word count
Often your project will come with a word count or some guidance on how much you should write. Stick to these guidelines as best as you can to ensure that your project sticks to the brief, but also to save yourself time!
- Limit your key takeaways to 3 – 5 main findings
Working with data is always interesting and there are often many insights that we can garner from our data work. In your write-up, try to limit your findings to 3 – 5 main takeaways. That way, you’re meeting the requirements of the brief but it’s also a good way to stay concise.
- Use bullet points
Let’s say you’ve identified the 3 key findings that you want to mention in your project. Why not include them as bullet points, rather than paragraphs of text? This way you can be concise, easily highlight the key information and improve your project’s overall readability.
- Remember…
Part of being concise is not only communicating your message in a brief and clear manner but it also involves ensuring that whatever you say needs to be said in the first place. A couple of questions to ask yourself when checking whether what you are writing is relevant include:
- Why does the reader need to know this?
- Is what I’m saying relevant to what I want to find out from my data?
- Is what I’m writing convincing to me? i.e. Do I have a strong enough reason for why I’m saying/doing this?
- At the end of each paragraph, ask how useful this is in moving forward with the rest of your project.
To conclude, following these practical tips will help you write your project in a clear and concise manner, thus allowing you to communicate the key message of your project, improve its readability, meet the project criteria, and save time.
Alexandria Harris is a Data Literacy/Data & Insights for Business Decisions coach at Multiverse.