How to Ensure Your Actionable Insights Lead to Action

“Actionable insights” is the Holy Grail of analytics. It is the point at which data achieves value, when smarter decisions are made, and when the hard work of the analytics team pays off. Actionable insights can also be elusive — a perfectly brilliant insight gets ignored or a comprehensive report gathers dusts on a shelf.

The myth persists: If you build it, they will come. The purity of your insight will compel your audience to action.

Of course, that’s not how it works. There is rarely an analytical finding that is, by itself, so obvious, clever, and compelling that other people in your organization are forced to act.

The reality is that an analytic insight needs to be nurtured and sold. Like a new product, people need to understand it, see how it fits into their life, compare it to the status quo, and see the case for making change.

Your actionable insight needs to connect to the things that are important to your audience. The following diagram shows the eight things that you’ll want to consider to evaluate whether your insight is likely to deliver the action you are hoping for. Consider it a checklist, starting from the top (“Attention”) and proceeding clockwise.

These are the stumbling blocks that we’ve seen as perfectly intelligence and researched insights go to a pre-mature grave. A good insight is a terrible thing to waste.