Dashboards and Data Visualization
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Table of Contents
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Introduction
Context
Design
Principles
3 Dashboards
Visuals
Conclusion
Focusing
Attention
CFI Instructors
We stand out from the competition because our teachers are professional educators.
Tim Vipond
Justin Sanders
Scott Powell
CEO & Instructor
Vancouver
Instructor
London
Director & Instructor
Vancouver
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Lisa Dorian
Ryan Spendelow
Director & Instructor
New York
Instructor
Hong Kong
Objectives
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Session objectives
Harness the power of
visual communication
Understand your audience
and the context
Focus your audience’s
attention on the most
important points
Apply best practices for
design principles
Tell the story you want to tell
Build persuasive
presentations
Design insightful
dashboards
Become a world class
financial analyst
corporatefinanceinstitute.com
Design clear and effective,
charts, graphs & images
Data Visualization Overview
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What is storytelling with data?
Numbers
Language
STORY
Numbers and language combine
to create storytelling with data
We typically work on numbers
and language separately
This course teaches you to combine
the two for effective business communication
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Why focus on visuals?
Majority of the population are “visual learners”
Our brains see words as pictures, not individual letters
Very hard to read financial analysis in
numbers and tables
Charts bring the data to life
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The potential impact is huge
Executive Decision Making
Executives need to make decisions quickly
Good analysts distill large amounts of complex
information into a simple, concise output
Enhanced decision making can lead to significant
value creation at most companies
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Bad charts are everywhere
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Great visuals make such a difference
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Great visuals make such a difference
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Context
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Session objectives
Know who your
audience is
Determine what action you
want them to take
Know what questions
to ask
Identify the “big idea”
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Decide how to get them
to take that action
Create a high level
storyboard
Know your audience
Audience
Internal
Executives
External
Company-wide
Clients
Update
Win Business
Decision
Project Update
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Public
Know your audience
Audience
Live
(Presented)
Non-Experts
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Distributed
(Email/Print)
Experts
Non-Experts
Experts
Know your audience
Audience
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Internal
External
Live
Distributed
Tailor your message
Considerations
Level of detail
Use of jargon /
technical
information /
Acronyms
Tone
Inform, or
persuade?
What biases does
the audience have?
Quantitative vs
qualitative data
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The main idea
“
“Despite significant growth in our company’s top line and
improving EBITDA margins, we require a significant capital
investment next year or we will run out of money.”
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Storyboarding
ISSUE:
DEMONSTRATE
ISSUE:
DEMONSTRATE
ISSUE:
IDEAS:
COMPARISON:
RECOMMENDATION:
Despite growth
and better
margins, we need
to raise money
Positives: Graphs
of revenue,
margins,
Negatives:
customer metrics,
capital
investment, cash
burn, etc.
Raise equity, raise
debt, dramatically
cut capital
spending
Show various
outcomes, before
and after etc.
The optional
choice is to raise
$x of equity
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Visuals
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Session objectives
Review the various
visual options
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Match visuals to the
situation
Know when to use
what type of visual
Text
+75%
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Table
Revenue Growth
Exit
Multiple
0%
5.0%
10.0%
15.0%
20.0%
-
19.22
23.73
29.09
35.43
42.88
7.0x
20.85
25.92
31.97
39.13
47.56
8.0x
22.47
28.11
34.85
42.83
52.24
9.0x
24.10
30.31
37.72
46.53
56.92
10.0x
25.73
32.50
40.60
50.23
61.60
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Heatmap
Revenue Growth
Exit
Multiple
0%
5.0%
10.0%
15.0%
20.0%
-
19.22
23.73
29.09
35.43
42.88
7.0x
20.85
25.92
31.97
39.13
47.56
8.0x
22.47
28.11
34.85
42.83
52.24
9.0x
24.10
30.31
37.72
46.53
56.92
10.0x
25.73
32.50
40.60
50.23
61.60
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Line chart
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38,943
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Waterfall
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Tornado
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Gauge
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Bullet
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What not to do…
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What not to do…
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5,157,469
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4,421,729
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3,995,126
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1,135,541
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38,943
0.00
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Visual Exercise
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In Excel, make at least 6 changes to improve this graph
Sold versus Shipped
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Sold
Shipped
Mar
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40
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Solution
Sold versus Shipped
150
Sold
125
Shipped
100
75
50
Jan
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Mar
Apr
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Focusing Attention
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Session objectives
Understand why preattentive attributes matter
corporatefinanceinstitute.com
Learn what each
of the attributes are
Learn how to incorporate
them in charts
Pre-attentive attributes
A pre-attentive attribute is processed by the brain BEFORE it
enters our consciousness or memory
It’s a survival instinct to highlight changes in our environment
Consists of color, form, movement and positioning
Can be easily incorporated into charts
Dramatically improves the effectiveness by focusing
attention where we want it
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Examples of pre-attentive attributes
Orientation
Width
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Shape
Color
Length
Enclosure
Incorporating the attributes with charts
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Incorporating the attributes with charts
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Incorporating the attributes with charts
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Target
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Series2
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Series1
Series2
Comment
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May
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Feb
Jan
Incorporating the attributes with charts
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70
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Threshold
35
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Focusing Attention Exercise
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In Excel, make at least 6 changes to improve this graph
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Solution
Actual vs Budget
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Actual
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Budget
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Design Principles
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Session objectives
Use guides to make
messages intuitive
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Make the information
accessible to all
The importance
of aesthetics
Guides
A guide indicates to someone how
something should be used
Use can use guides to clearly illustrate information in charts
Highlight important information
Eliminate distractions
Isolate the key message
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Guides
70
60
Over Budget
50
Budget
40
30
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20
10
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0
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Accessibility
Anyone from any background can understand the information
Keep it clean
Use common language
Remove complexity
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Accessibility
In July we saw a significant
increase in order volume, which
lead to higher-than-expected
revenue
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Aesthetics
Not only are beautiful charts more pleasing to look at,
they are more likely to be accepted as “true”
Be careful with color
Alignment is critical
Use white space intelligently
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Aesthetics
100%
90%
80%
70%
23%
37%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Series1
Series2
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Series3
Series4
Series5
Series6
Series7
Series8
Dashboards
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Session objectives
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Why use dashboards
Executive decision making
How to build a dashboard
3 Step by Step
Examples
Why use dashboards
Quickly digest a large amount of information
Evaluate historical performance
Illustrate a forecasts and scenarios
Output the details of a financial model
Regular company updates
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Executive decision making
My time is extremely limited
© Corporate Finance Institute
DASHBOARD TEMPLATE
2018 Net Earnings Waterfall ($000s)
What are the key takeaways?
What should I be worried about?
What should we change?
What is going well?
Cash Flow and Cash Balance ($000s)
2018 Productivity Rate
Cash from Operations
Cash from Investing
Cash from Financing
$200
Business 1
74.0%
$150
What should we do more of?
0%
$100
$50
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
Business 2
80%
90%
100%
80%
90%
100%
80%
90%
100%
87.0%
$0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
$(50)
Business 3
$(100)
79.0%
$(150)
2014
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2015
2016
2017
2018
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
How to build a dashboard
Designing
Planning
What metrics are most important for this business?
Size and orientation
What time periods are most relevant?
Charts versus tables, versus text
Who is going to read this?
Design principles
What decisions will they make from it?
Corporate style guide
Multiple iterations… lots of tinkering
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How to build a dashboard
SWITCH TO EXCEL RECORDING
LIVE DEMONSTRATION
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Conclusion
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Session objectives
Harness the power of
visual communication
Understand your audience
and the context
Focus your audience’s
attention on the most
important points
Apply best practices for
design principles
Tell the story you want to tell
Build persuasive
presentations
Design insightful
dashboards
Become a world class
financial analyst
corporatefinanceinstitute.com
Design clear and effective,
charts, graphs & images
Advance your
career
corporatefinanceinstitute.com