INFORMS Open Forum

Hello INFORMS colleagues,

I'm excited to share that my article, "How One Google Team Built Storytelling Into Analytics," was just published in MIT Sloan Management Review:
🔗 Read the article here

The piece draws on my experience at Google leading analytics for the SMB business. It introduces a framework for embedding narrative into analytics stacks to improve executive engagement and decision-making.

One of the challenges I've observed is that even the best analysis can fail to gain traction if leaders can't connect with the story behind the numbers. My goal with this article is to highlight practical ways analytics teams can elevate data-driven storytelling as a core capability.

I'd love to hear from others in the INFORMS community:

• How do you integrate storytelling into your analytics practice?

• What strategies have worked (or not worked) in getting leadership buy-in for data-driven decisions?

Looking forward to your thoughts and discussion.

Best regards,

Jiaxi

------------------------------
Jiaxi Zhu
Head of Analytics, Small & Medium Business (SMB)
Google
Mountain View CA
------------------------------

Thanks for sharing.  I was unable to read the entire article due to a paywall, but I've helped teach storytelling and presentation skills related to analysis work.  There are MANY lessons learned along the way and often a large amount of experience required before one can master this skill.  I would also suggest that INFORMS CAP and the associated Analytics Framework highlight how important business problem framing is to establishing stakeholder buy-in.  It is critical that analysts understand enough of the business problem or closely works with someone that does.  I would also encourage reading the INFORMS ABOK, as there is a good amount of content about soft skills as part of analytics projects and teams.

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Nicholas Ulmer
CANA LLC
Pacific Grove CA
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 9/5/2025 2:38:00 PM
From: Nicholas Ulmer
Subject: RE: New MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Storytelling in Analytics

Thanks for sharing.  I was unable to read the entire article due to a paywall, but I've helped teach storytelling and presentation skills related to analysis work.  There are MANY lessons learned along the way and often a large amount of experience required before one can master this skill.  I would also suggest that INFORMS CAP and the associated Analytics Framework highlight how important business problem framing is to establishing stakeholder buy-in.  It is critical that analysts understand enough of the business problem or closely works with someone that does.  I would also encourage reading the INFORMS ABOK, as there is a good amount of content about soft skills as part of analytics projects and teams.

------------------------------
Nicholas Ulmer
CANA LLC
Pacific Grove CA
------------------------------

Absolutely love to continue this conversation.  Institutionalizing storytelling would need to be agile and responsive to changes in leadership.  Understanding your audience must be a priority when preparing a presentation that is meant to be decisional.  In other words, when a decision is the intended outcome for the leadership receiving the information.

------------------------------
Nicholas Ulmer
CANA LLC
Pacific Grove CA
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 09-08-2025 02:48
From: Jiaxi Zhu
Subject: New MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Storytelling in Analytics

Hi Nicholas,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Your point about business problem framing especially resonates with me. I've found that when analysts invest time in aligning with the real business context, it makes a huge difference in how the analysis is received by decision makers.

I'd love to continue the conversation on how these frameworks can complement each other. Also, I'm curious if you've seen organizations effectively institutionalize this kind of storytelling capability at scale. This has been a recurring challenge based on my personal experience.

Best regards,

Jiaxi

www.linkedin.com/in/jiaxi-zhu

Original Message:
Sent: 9/5/2025 2:38:00 PM
From: Nicholas Ulmer
Subject: RE: New MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Storytelling in Analytics

Thanks for sharing.  I was unable to read the entire article due to a paywall, but I've helped teach storytelling and presentation skills related to analysis work.  There are MANY lessons learned along the way and often a large amount of experience required before one can master this skill.  I would also suggest that INFORMS CAP and the associated Analytics Framework highlight how important business problem framing is to establishing stakeholder buy-in.  It is critical that analysts understand enough of the business problem or closely works with someone that does.  I would also encourage reading the INFORMS ABOK, as there is a good amount of content about soft skills as part of analytics projects and teams.

------------------------------
Nicholas Ulmer
CANA LLC
Pacific Grove CA
------------------------------

Hello Jiaxi,

I was also unable to read the entire article due to the paywall. 

More than once, I have found myself unable to influence decision making without telling a good story. What makes the story "good" depends on the context. However, here are a few things I have learned when analyzing Sales Pipeline data for leadership:

• How do you integrate storytelling into your analytics practice? Our stories are repeatedly told and often take the form of answering questions from left to right (beginning to end) of a process (like new leads to closed leads). The data is often shown at an aggregate level (parent KPI) using charts or color coded tables. Therefore, summarized data acts as storybook illustrations. Child KPIs or exploratory charts (like histograms) may or may not be shared in the final telling (key takeaways) but can be shared when telling how the story came to be. More on this below.

• What strategies have worked (or not worked) in getting leadership buy-in for data-driven decisions? First and foremost, leadership needs to believe that the problem exists and it is worth solving. Time must be spent discussing that first. Call it the preface. Then, they need to be able to trust the methodology behind generating and segmenting data. Call it the introduction--where supporting information (like histograms or definitions) can be shared. Once done, you can (more easily) tell the data story. Finally, you must let leadership read back what was said in their own words, so they can feel confident enough to tell the story themselves (perhaps to the Board). Consider this an epilogue.

Ultimately, a structured story telling process can be used to ensure that insights are trusted and socialized enough for someone to reasonably take on ownership of next steps.

------------------------------
Trish H
Revenue Operations Manager
ProsperOps
Houston TX
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 9/6/2025 11:59:00 AM
From: Trish H
Subject: RE: New MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Storytelling in Analytics

Hello Jiaxi,

I was also unable to read the entire article due to the paywall. 

More than once, I have found myself unable to influence decision making without telling a good story. What makes the story "good" depends on the context. However, here are a few things I have learned when analyzing Sales Pipeline data for leadership:

• How do you integrate storytelling into your analytics practice? Our stories are repeatedly told and often take the form of answering questions from left to right (beginning to end) of a process (like new leads to closed leads). The data is often shown at an aggregate level (parent KPI) using charts or color coded tables. Therefore, summarized data acts as storybook illustrations. Child KPIs or exploratory charts (like histograms) may or may not be shared in the final telling (key takeaways) but can be shared when telling how the story came to be. More on this below.

• What strategies have worked (or not worked) in getting leadership buy-in for data-driven decisions? First and foremost, leadership needs to believe that the problem exists and it is worth solving. Time must be spent discussing that first. Call it the preface. Then, they need to be able to trust the methodology behind generating and segmenting data. Call it the introduction--where supporting information (like histograms or definitions) can be shared. Once done, you can (more easily) tell the data story. Finally, you must let leadership read back what was said in their own words, so they can feel confident enough to tell the story themselves (perhaps to the Board). Consider this an epilogue.

Ultimately, a structured story telling process can be used to ensure that insights are trusted and socialized enough for someone to reasonably take on ownership of next steps.

------------------------------
Trish H
Revenue Operations Manager
ProsperOps
Houston TX
------------------------------

It's great to see the importance of story-telling in analytics being recognized in INFORMS community. In fact, story-telling, or visual story-telling (the practical term) or data interpretation (the academic term), is a highly sought-after skill in practice, about 30% of supply chain jobs requiring this skill, which is as popular as predictive analytics!

For more details, see (no paywall) https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiNTIyYjhkNTgtYzcwZC00ZGIxLTk1MTQtZDBjN2E3ZTgwMWU1IiwidCI6ImI5MmQyYjIzLTRkMzUtNDQ3MC05M2ZmLTY5YWNhNjYzMmZmZSIsImMiOjF9

One sad observation is that much fewer academic programs cover this skills - one reason, as I experienced, is that many people think storytelling is easy, "who cannot talk about a picture?" The fact is that the vast majority of people do not have this skill and have to be trained. Very few people can put the puzzle pieces together and truly understand the business / economic meanings. Story-telling requires a flash of genius and can turn stones (data) into gold (actionable insights).

Fortunately story-telling is easy to teach, and once students get it, it becomes simple and repeatable. The instruction process is thrilling, inspiring and eye-opening for both the students and instructors.

------------------------------
Yao Zhao
Professor
Rutgers University
Newark NJ
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 9/6/2025 10:40:00 AM
From: Yao Zhao
Subject: RE: New MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Storytelling in Analytics

It's great to see the importance of story-telling in analytics being recognized in INFORMS community. In fact, story-telling, or visual story-telling (the practical term) or data interpretation (the academic term), is a highly sought-after skill in practice, about 30% of supply chain jobs requiring this skill, which is as popular as predictive analytics!

For more details, see (no paywall) https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiNTIyYjhkNTgtYzcwZC00ZGIxLTk1MTQtZDBjN2E3ZTgwMWU1IiwidCI6ImI5MmQyYjIzLTRkMzUtNDQ3MC05M2ZmLTY5YWNhNjYzMmZmZSIsImMiOjF9

One sad observation is that much fewer academic programs cover this skills - one reason, as I experienced, is that many people think storytelling is easy, "who cannot talk about a picture?" The fact is that the vast majority of people do not have this skill and have to be trained. Very few people can put the puzzle pieces together and truly understand the business / economic meanings. Story-telling requires a flash of genius and can turn stones (data) into gold (actionable insights).

Fortunately story-telling is easy to teach, and once students get it, it becomes simple and repeatable. The instruction process is thrilling, inspiring and eye-opening for both the students and instructors.

------------------------------
Yao Zhao
Professor
Rutgers University
Newark NJ
------------------------------

Hi Jiaxi

This is a fantastic read - just shared with all my analytics colleagues. Everything you're describing resonates very much with me.  Now, when it comes to identifying strategies for stakeholder buy-in, "prioritized explainability" is exactly what we did - and it worked! Choosing between a highly complex predictive model with a slightly better performance and a very simple one (with only 3 predictors) we picked the latter one so that we could easily translate the outputs into plain language and equip the team with "what-if" logic.

PS - I've written on the topic of data storytelling for Supply Chain Management Review (available in the printed version and online for subscribers) - if you're interested, I can share the pdf.

------------------------------
Marianna Vydrevich
Manager, Operations Research and Network Optimization
GAF
Cedar Knolls NJ
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 9/9/2025 9:55:00 AM
From: Marianna Vydrevich
Subject: RE: New MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Storytelling in Analytics

Hi Jiaxi

This is a fantastic read - just shared with all my analytics colleagues. Everything you're describing resonates very much with me.  Now, when it comes to identifying strategies for stakeholder buy-in, "prioritized explainability" is exactly what we did - and it worked! Choosing between a highly complex predictive model with a slightly better performance and a very simple one (with only 3 predictors) we picked the latter one so that we could easily translate the outputs into plain language and equip the team with "what-if" logic.

PS - I've written on the topic of data storytelling for Supply Chain Management Review (available in the printed version and online for subscribers) - if you're interested, I can share the pdf.

------------------------------
Marianna Vydrevich
Manager, Operations Research and Network Optimization
GAF
Cedar Knolls NJ
------------------------------

Please see attached. it's a short read, and there are quite a few things in common (my examples are all supply-chain specific, of course): focusing on the "why", practicality, business acumen as the core competency  and building trust. 

------------------------------
Marianna Vydrevich
Manager, Operations Research and Network Optimization
GAF
Parsippany NJ
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 09-10-2025 01:43
From: Jiaxi Zhu
Subject: New MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Storytelling in Analytics

Hi Marianna,

Thank you for your kind words and for sharing how you've applied similar principles. I'd love to read your piece in SCMR. If you're able to share the PDF, that would be wonderful. I'd be especially interested to hear what connections you see between your perspective and the framework I outlined.

Best regards,

Jiaxi

www.linkedin.com/in/jiaxi-zhu

Original Message:
Sent: 9/9/2025 9:55:00 AM
From: Marianna Vydrevich
Subject: RE: New MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Storytelling in Analytics

Hi Jiaxi

This is a fantastic read - just shared with all my analytics colleagues. Everything you're describing resonates very much with me.  Now, when it comes to identifying strategies for stakeholder buy-in, "prioritized explainability" is exactly what we did - and it worked! Choosing between a highly complex predictive model with a slightly better performance and a very simple one (with only 3 predictors) we picked the latter one so that we could easily translate the outputs into plain language and equip the team with "what-if" logic.

PS - I've written on the topic of data storytelling for Supply Chain Management Review (available in the printed version and online for subscribers) - if you're interested, I can share the pdf.

------------------------------
Marianna Vydrevich
Manager, Operations Research and Network Optimization
GAF
Cedar Knolls NJ
------------------------------