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Share insights, not findings
What distinguishes a “finding” from an “insight” and why that matters
Morgan Depenbusch
August 19, 2025
Weekly roundup
Best LinkedIn post: How to unrot your brain (note to self: break up with my phone) (LinkedIn)
Best chart brain-teaser: See if you can crack the New York Times’ weekly What’s Going On in This Graph? puzzle (NYT)
Books so good you’ll read them twice: My top 9 favorite career and nonfiction reads (LinkedIn)
A few months ago, we were preparing slides for our CHRO.
A group of us had been working on them for days, and we had just gotten feedback on our final draft.
I jumped to the first comment in the deck:
“This is interesting, but so what?”
I chuckled.
Because even when you’ve been in analytics for years, it’s surprisingly easy to fall into the trap of “just showing the data.” We assume the numbers speak for themselves… but in reality, this is rarely the case.
What we’re really talking about here is the difference between findings and insights.
A finding is just the “what.”
An insight connects the dots to the “so what” and (ideally) the “now what.”
Findings vs. Insights
A finding is what the data says. An insight is what it means.
From Finding … | … to Insight |
|---|---|
“Customer churn rose 8% last month.” | “We saw an 8% rise in churn right after we launched the new pricing model, suggesting it may be too aggressive for existing users.” |
“Survey satisfaction scores dropped 0.6 points.” | “Scores dropped 0.6 points, primarily in the ‘career growth’ category, hinting at frustration with the promotion process.” |
“Website traffic is up 18% YoY.” | “Website traffic is up 18%, but growth is almost entirely from paid ads, not organic, meaning we may be over-reliant on spend to maintain growth.” |
The Pressure Test
Not sure if you’re stuck in the finding-zone? Run your slide or metric through these 3 questions:
Why does this matter to my audience?
Don’t assume they’ll connect the dots. Spell it out.What’s causing this?
Offer a possible explanation, even if it’s just a hypothesis.What should we do about it?
Insights don’t always have to come with full recommendations, but they should suggest a next step or consideration (read about calls-to-action if you need some ideas).
If you can’t answer at least one of these, you’ve probably still got a finding, not an insight.
Try This Today
Look at one metric you’re reporting this week and say out loud: “This matters because…”
Not able to finish the sentence clearly and confidently yet? Spend more time digging in the data, or grab a teammate and talk it through.
Hope this was insightful,
Morgan
Psst in case you missed the announcement last week:
On Friday, August 29, I’m hosting Nick Desbarats for an exclusive FREE 60-minute mini-workshop + Q&A just for newsletter readers.
Nick is one of the most respected voices in the data visualization world. He’s taught chart-making and dashboard design to folks at NASA, Bloomberg, Visa, the UN, and Shopify. He’s also the author of one of my favorite data viz books, Practical Charts, and has lectured at places like Yale and Columbia.
He’ll be sharing the 10 skills you need to create great charts and running a mini-workshop on how to choose the right chart type to show data over time.
Click below to join us Friday, August 29 at 9am PT |
Looking to improve your data viz skills? Here’s how I can help you:
Best data viz resources: A curated list of my tried and true favorite books, courses, and online resources.
Story-Driven Charts: My flagship course on how to design charts that clearly communicate your insights, catch leaders’ attention, and make you stand out from the crowd.