There are many challenges when measuring what's happening in your business, several of which we've discussed. You need to determine what to measure and how, not to mention finding the right data and measuring it consistently to get a good picture of what's happening in your business.
There is another challenge, one that often falls to the back burner but that is equally important to consider: how to communicate and display your results.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, so is an effective visual data display. Done well, it can allow you to both see and communicate, clearly and succinctly, the insights all your measurement work has provided. Done without care, it can cause an audience to misinterpret data or jump to erroneous conclusions. And while a client, colleague or executive is unlikely to be moved by pages of numbers, an effective graph or chart can tell an influential story.
There are a number of ways to display results visually; however, even the most creative ways have at their core the tried and true basics. In terms of data display, most needs are covered by four options, each of which is best used for specific objectives.
- Pie Charts: These are effective when you are trying to show the proportion that one or more items represents out of a whole. For example, you may have five products in a category and would like to display what percentage of total sales each category represents. The pie would be divided into five pieces, one for each product, and the varying size of each piece would visually represent the percentage of sales for that product. When all the pieces are added up, they should always equal 1 (or 100% - in other words, the whole).
Line Graphs: Line graphs are particularly useful to understand trends. For example, if you show weekly sales over a period of months in a line graph, you can easily identify both the overall trend (up or down), as well as any peaks or valleys that you may wish to investigate further. By layering multiple lines on your graph, you can also compare trends- Bar Charts:.
Bar charts are commonly used the make comparisons; for example between regions, product lines, or brands. Each category is assigned bars of a different color, creating a quick and easy comparative view. 
Tables: Tables can be used to display multiple pieces of information in a consistent fashion. Perhaps the least visually appealing (because, in fact, they represent a way of organizing written data rather than truly making it visual), they should be used sparingly and should be limited when possible to three or four columns and rows. Any more than that can become confusing or overwhelming for the audience and fall into the trap of "too much information".
By paying attention to the way you display your data, whether it be for yourself, your clients, or any other audience that you need to communicate with, you can ensure that your measurement and metrics efforts deliver maximum impact and value.