In early September, the DFA IT welcomed DFA’s very first data storyteller, Jargal Battulga, to the team. Data storytellers curate and interpret data using visualization tools with the goal of helping others build meaning around the data and understand how it fits in the broader context and narrative of their organizations. Jargal comes to us from Indiana University and will be supporting our stakeholder units in making data clear, accessible, and actionable and working closely with the DFA’s Framework for Success Champions.
While we couldn’t be more excited for Jargal to join us in DFA IT, you might be wondering how you’ll be interacting with her work. We sat down with Jargal to talk about what she’s bringing to DFA IT and why she thinks making data literacy easy and accessible is the key to making better management decisions.
Tell me about your work with Indiana University – what department did you work in and what units did you support?
I worked in a couple different departments at IU, but the most recent one I was working with was Shared Services. Our department served all the regional campuses that IU has, apart from Bloomington. We served about six different campuses and our graduate units across all the campuses. I helped work within Salesforce and assisted them in utilizing the CRM (customer relationship management software) to support their admissions and online enrollment and recruitment efforts.
Tell me more about data visualization tools – which one is your favorite for organizing this kind of data?
Historically, I’ve had more experience working in Tableau. I’ve not really been too involved in Power BI, but I would hope to after I become more of an expert in Tableau. I think Tableau is such a cool tool you can do so many things with. I really want to make it interactive for the units and really digestible and I think the visual tools really do make it easier to understand.
What does the idea of “data literacy” mean to you and how do you think it can help people use data more effectively?
I think data literacy is being able to look at the data and say what you’re looking at or understand what you’re looking at. I think it’s important to make the data simplified and presentable in a way that is understandable across the board, whether you have really high data literacy or low data literacy. And so that’s something I think in this role will be really important. I’m hoping to make it so that it is understandable for everyone when they come in and look at the data. I want you to be able to look and be like, “OK, I completely get what this means.”
What drew you to this particular role of data storyteller?
I worked in data analysis for a long time. I thought this would be a great step because I have been wanting to explore and challenge myself to try something new. This role really stood out to me and I thought it would be a really great opportunity to level up my skills in data visualization. I like being able to see my work driving more decision making or having more of an impact. I hope to be a resource for the units and hopefully be able to provide more information or context.
A look at what’s ahead …
Jargal is meeting with key stakeholders around DFA and will be working closely with the Framework for Success Champions in supporting our stakeholder units as they leverage data, technologies and other tools to achieve their F4S goals and align with the FY 24 DFA Strategic Priorities.