Wednesday, March 3, 2021

Demo Data: The Importance of Problems, Gaps, and Exceptions


I was working with a vendor on an example demo and we identified a dashboard to serve as an Illustration (a “Wow!” screen for that use case) – but while the dashboard had all the right data elements, the data itself was uncompelling.  There were no problems, gaps, or exceptions exhibited.  Everything looked “OK”. 

While this could be a good example of a desired future state, it is insufficient to build vision of how problems are surfaced and solved.  

 

When you are creating demo data, be sure to include at least three sets of scenarios:

  1. “Before” scenarios, where important problems are clearly represented;
  2. “During” scenarios, where these problems can be shown being addressed;
  3. “After” scenarios, where the history of problem(s) identification and resolution can be presented.

Even better, in addition to problem-based use cases, also consider including outlier situations – e.g., intriguing gaps in time-series, exceptions to otherwise regular patterns, and opportunities to be exploited.  

 

Bring your demo data alive…!  For more ideas on improving your demo environment, see our article on the topic at https://greatdemo.com/a-perfect-demo-environment/.  Enjoy!

 

Additional Note:  Even if your demo environment lacks this data today, there may be an easy way to “doctor” the data using one of the emerging demo enablement/automation tools.  Stay tuned for more on these new tools as they appear…!

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