“Oh this is interesting, thanks for looking into this..” – Words from her stakeholder as he observed her analysis before turning around and continuing with things as usual. Sounds familiar? Here comes an analytics template to ensure your analytics get actionable results that your stakeholders will want to act on.
Disclaimer: I prefer to use practical examples for illustrative purposes whenever possible in my articles. In this I will refer to Spotify Audiobooks. All data points are composited.
Working on an analysis can be a long and tedious process. Finding relevant data, shaping it, and extracting useful information before summarizing it all into a presentable format can take several weeks. The more work put into an analysis, the more frustrating it can be if the analysis does not lead to any business decisions.
For an analysis to have impact, it not only has to arrive in time so that the decision at hand is not already made, but it must also include tangible, actionable insights with clear next steps and options that are easy for stakeholders to evaluate.
Actionable insights not only provide a specific data point that could be interesting, but also lay out a clear narrative of how this insight connects to the problem at hand, what the ramifications are, as well as possible options and next steps. with the associated problems. benefits/risks of (not) acting on them.
Let's look at an example, in this case of one of Spotify's functions. Audiobooks:
- Not actionable: Users under 25 years of age hardly use audiobooks. → Is this good or bad? Should they listen to audiobooks? Is there anything we should do about this?
- Actionable: Users under 25 hardly use audiobooks because they never explore the app's functionality. However, users who listen to audiobooks have a 20% higher retention rate. → This information tells us that audiobooks represent a potential opportunity to increase retention among younger users; however, it appears there is more work to be done to encourage users…
