We need to talk.
You know that spreadsheet that you go to when your boss needs
those last minute numbers?
Your lifeline when a meeting falls into complete chaos,
cos Karen means every detail.
Yeah, that spreadsheet.
It's dead!
Dead!
DEAD!
Okay, so it's not completely dead, but here me out.
We love data, but inserting data into spreadsheets can get beastly fast.
Often, spreadsheets of data are configured in a way
that only a few members of the team can understand.
On top of that, when data is confined to a spreadsheet,
it becomes challenging to see patterns and how it impacts the big picture.
This can cripple innovation
and prevent your organization from doing some of its best work.
In this video, we're going to change how you see data, literally.
I'm going to show you how to visualize your data in Lucidspark
to help clearly communicate, ideate, organize, and analyze your findings
so that the decisions you make are backed by,
you guessed it,
data.
Lucidspark allows you to take existing information
and import it without all the manual retyping
so that you can work with it in a flexible environment.
No longer confined to columns and rows.
Having the data displayed in this way allows us to see patterns,
organize the information by themes, and ideate on potential solutions.
For example, let's say we plan a yearly summit with a panel of industry experts.
It's a fun, engaging event and we're always trying to improve it.
At the end of the summit, we ask the panelists to fill out a survey
about their experience so that feedback is captured to:
1. Make sure that we continue to do the things that work well and
2. Decide on and plan improvements for the event next year.
To start, we’ll want to bring the survey feedback into Lucidspark
by taking the spreadsheet data in the CSV or TXT format
and importing it into Lucidspark through the quick sticky upload feature.
Doing this will transform the data into sticky notes
that can then be adjusted and categorized.
Before importing, you'll want to make sure that the information
you want grouped together like maybe name and feedback is within the same cell.
Why is this important?
Because Lucidspark will translate each individual cell into separate sticky notes.
So if you notice, after importing that things have gotten a little wonky,
just jump back into your spreadsheet to make sure the needed
information is grouped within the same cell.
Now select the Sticky Note icon.
Upload, choose File.
Select my File and voila, all the stickies appear on the board.
Now we can invite team members to group,
organize and analyze all this info.
Let's see if there are any commonalities in the pieces of feedback.
Then we can group the sticky notes by theme
using tags or sorting them into containers and frames.
Seeing all of this information together might inspire us to jump
into brainstorming solutions to improve our processes
and discuss ways that we might implement these changes in the future.
We can then take
this data and these ideas to create a proposal presentation that can help us
convey our plans for review and approval across other teams.
Now, I recognize that spreadsheets have their time and place
so we won't get rid of them completely.
In some scenarios, the required documentation we were asked to deliver
might have to be a spreadsheet after ideation has happened.
So if we wanted to capture this information
and export it out of Lucidspark and back into a spreadsheet,
we can create a CSV file of all the solutions we generated.
To do this, go to the hamburger menu,
select export, and CSV of Shape Data.
When the CSV is produced, we'll be able to see all the text
contained in each sticky note, in the Text Area 1 column.
Then we can edit the spreadsheet to fit what we need.
If we want to export ideas into different categories,
like maybe we have different teams responsible for the different phases of
an event and we need separate spreadsheets for each team.
We can separate our ideas into Pre-Event, During Event,
and Post-Event ideas using Breakout Boards.
Then when we export the main board and each breakout
board becomes its own document with each Text Area 1
corresponding to the sticky notes on the breakout board.
Now that we've come up with some new ideas to implement with our event,
we need to revamp the workflow and create action plans to integrate these ideas.
Visualizing the various workflows can help us to quickly
weigh pros and cons and increase the effectiveness of our planning.
To do this, we'll import our event planning spreadsheet data into Lucid Cards.
Lucid Cards help you plan projects, provide important details,
and then connect that information to your project planning platform
using one of our integrations.
Before we import our spreadsheet, similar to the quick sticky upload,
we first need to organize our spreadsheet and match the corresponding Lucid Card categories.
You can see those by dragging a Lucid Card
onto your board and then selecting Edit details.
Make sure each of the columns in the spreadsheet corresponds
to one of the Lucid Card categories: like Title, Description, Status, and so on.
Now we're ready.
To import spreadsheet data into Lucid Cards,
we'll go to the Hamburger Menu, select Insert, CSV, Lucid Cards.
Select the file we want to use, and then help Lucidspark import
our information correctly, by selecting the corresponding columns
from our spreadsheet with the related Lucid Card categories.
Select Import, and just like that,
we've got our Lucid Cards on the board.
Again, my colleagues and I will collaborate to determine
who does what and where we could potentially fit
some of our new ideas based on our survey insights.
We'll want to make sure that these ideas don't disappear into the abyss.
Let's take action on them now.
We'll use the Lucidspark JIRA integration to convert these tasks into issues
and add them directly to a JIRA project where it can be stored
and ready to go for next year.
As mentioned earlier, if the scenario calls for it
and you have to submit this information in a spreadsheet format,
you can do that with Lucid Cards as well.
To export all of the Lucid Card data back
into a CSV, we’ll follow the same steps we did with the sticky notes.
Export, CSV of Shape Data.
This time the data will show in the corresponding columns
like Assignee, Description, End Date, etc..
And there you go.
Now it's ready to be shared with the whole department.
It's worth calling out here that when you're exporting Shape Data
from the hamburger menu, you are exporting all the data on the Lucidspark page.
But what if you just wanted to export the Lucid Cards?
You can select the items you want to export, right click on them,
scroll down to Export Selection and select CSV of Shape Data.
So to recap, your spreadsheet might not be dead,
but sometimes you need more flexibility than a spreadsheet allows.
Lucidspark gives you a limitless virtual space
to help you visualize data in a way that promotes innovation
and inspires your team to do their best work.
Upload your spreadsheet data, use the sticky notes to organize an ideate,
and then analyze and make an action plan with Lucid Cards and Timelines.
Try out some of these tips to start seeing your data differently.
For more resources, be sure to visit our training website at
training.lucid.co
Thanks for joining us.
See you next time.