Rethinking Data: A Smarter Way to Drive Decisions

Rethinking Data changes how you engage data. It shifts you from feeling overwhelmed to empowered.

This is not a number-crunching course. Its focus is driving decisions and taking action. It will help you cut clutter and avoid common data pitfalls. The result:  better, faster, and smarter decisions.

The workshop follows Avail Advisors’ Eight Rules for Turning Information into Action. It will give you a new mindset and toolkit for decision-making.

We have taught a wide range of leaders. Our audience has included front line managers to senior executives. Our participants come from Fortune 50 companies to mid-market businesses to small non-profits. We have delivered in-person or virtually in over 47 countries. We have taught in nearly every major industry including financial services, healthcare, government, professional services (e.g., consulting and outsourcing), consumer products, construction, and agriculture. 

Workshop Outcomes

By the end of this workshop, you will drive better and faster decisions by:

• Managing key biases that hurt decision-making
• Defining the data needed for any decision
• Turning data into clear, actionable insights
• Creating reports that deliver answers, not just numbers
• Building simple, compelling, and data-driven stories about your business

Workshop Modules

Module 1: Rethinking How We Think – You will learn how your brain interacts with data. This module reveals the thinking traps and cognitive biases that derail decision-making. It shows how traditional reporting and presentations often make things worse.

Module 2: Aligning Data and Decisions – You will learn the Decision-Breakdown technique. Decision Breakdown is a practical approach to structuring your decision. It helps you define the criteria and data required to make a decision. It improves efficiency by aligning your analysis with the decision at hand.

Module 3: Understanding Your Metrics – You will learn 5 questions that you must be able to answer about a metric before you attempt to interpret it. This will help you more accurately see and understand the story of your business.

Module 4: Rethinking Reporting – You will learn the Decision-Based Reporting technique. This technique structures your reports around answers and actions, not endless detail.

Module 5: Tying Findings to Your Business – You will learn our Action-Reaction-Urgency framework to tie discrete findings to other data and ultimately to the business. This allows you to create specific, holistic, and actionable recommendations from your findings.

Module 6: Telling a Data-Driven Story – You will learn how to craft focused, insight-rich stories about your business. You will use proven templates that connect your data to the decisions that matter.

Module 7: Simplifying Your Message – You will learn how to turn complex analysis into powerful clarity. Using the Six-Word Story and 1:1:1 Rule, you will create simple, clear messages (visual and written) that inspire action across stakeholders.

If you’re tired of data overload and decision paralysis, Rethinking Data will change the way you lead.

Delivery Options

RETHINKING DATA WORKSHOP AGENDA

DAY 1*

Workshop introduction

• The value of data is not data (it’s action and decisions)
• Focusing on numbers doesn’t work
• Rule 1: People want answers
• Our brains aren’t very good with numbers
• Focusing on numbers results in inefficient 
and ineffective decision-making

Module 1: Rethinking how we think


• Unconscious versus conscious data processing and why we miss so much
• Rule 2: The more you see, the more you miss
• Bias examples and experiences
• To see more, look at less

Module 2: Aligning data and decisions

• Rule 3: Simplicity drives understanding
• Rule 4: Separate relevant data from 
related data
• Decision breakdown – defining your decisions 
before you make them
• Activity: Create a decision-breakdown tree for a business problem
• Using decision breakdown to determine and structure
your recommendation and story
• Activity: Make a recommendation based on the results of your decision-breakdown tree

DAY 2

Module 3: Understanding your metrics

• 5 questions to answer before using a metric
• Metric walkthrough/discussion

Module 4: Rethinking reporting

• Rule 8: Design reports around answers not numbers
• Decision report examples and process for creating one
• Decision-based versus number-based dashboards

Module 5: Tying findings to your business

• Findings are not a story
• The story is in your business
• Action-Reaction-Urgency framework to turn your finding into a specific, actionable business decision
• Activity: Turning findings into business decisions

DAY 3

Module 6: Telling a data-driven story

• Rule 5: Context creates meaning
• Rule 7: Become a prosecutor not a mystery writer
• The 7 types of business stories
• Using story structures and templates to create simple, clear, logical business stories
• Activity: Develop a four-minute recommendation presentation

DAY 4

Module 6 (cont):

• Status story structure
• Activity: Create a status update for your part of the business

Module 7: Simplifying your message

• Simplifying your messages and presentations
• The “five second rule” – turning information into action
• 5 tips for simplifying your slides and writing
• Activity: Simplify slide
• Rule 6: Use reasoning to support your decisions

Workshop close

[1]* The day designations are for the virtual workshop. The instructor-led workshop follows the same schedule all in a single day.