Dashboards

Keywords:

Linkout: Developing an Organisation and Managing People

OUTLINES

From Wikipedia (Retrieved on 2013_11_1)

A. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashboard_(disambiguation)

B. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashboard_(business)

C.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashboards_(management_information_systems)

There are 3 main types of Dashboards

Dashboard (business), a web page which collates information about a business

Dashboards (management information systems), a management tool used to get an overview of enterprise health

Dashboard (web administration), a tool for administration of websites

Business Dashboard

What is it?
- Provide at-a-glance views of KPIs (key performance indicators) relevant to a particular objective or business process (e.g. sales, marketing, human resources, or production).
- Allows you to monitor the major functions at a glance via the instrument cluster. [B1]
- Dashboards give signs about a business letting the user know something is wrong or something is right.
- Dashboards typically are limited to show summaries, key trends, comparisons, and exceptions.
How does one look like? (as compared to a Scoreboard)
- Series of graphics, charts, gauges and other visual indicators that can be monitored and interpreted.
- Strategic objectives and links not present on dashboards. (unlike Scoreboards)
- can be customized to link their graphs and charts to strategic objectives.[B7]
Four Key elements to a good dashboard:.[B2]
- Simple easy communication
- Minimum distractions
- Supports organized business with meaning and useful data
- Applies human visual perception to visual presentation of information
Related Ideas
- Precursors:
  - Executive Information Systems (EISs).
  - Online analytical processing (OLAP) allowed dashboards to function adequately.
- Current:
  - Key performance indicators (KPIs)
  - Balance Scorecard (BSC) by Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton[B5]
  - Balance Scoreboards:
- Trending:
  - Business Performance Management (BPM)
Categories [B6]
- Strategic:
  - Support managers at any level in an organization, and provide the quick overview that decision makers need to monitor the health and opportunities of the business.
  - Focus on high level measures of performance, and forecasts.
  - Display static snapshots of data (daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly) that are not constantly changing from one moment to the next
- Analytical
  - Include more context, comparisons, and history, along with subtler performance evaluators.
  - Support interactions with the data, such as drilling down into the underlying details
- Operational
  - Requires monitoring of activities and events that are constantly changing and require attention and response at a moment's notice.

Information Systems Management or Digital Dashboard

What is it?
- "an easy to read, often single page, real-time user interface, showing a graphical presentation of the current status (snapshot) and historical trends of an organization’s key performance indicators to enable instantaneous and informed decisions to be made at a glance."[C1]
Dashboard Examples by Industry and their KPIs
- Manufacturing dashboard: productivity KPIs such as number of parts manufactured, or number of failed quality inspections per hour.
- Human resources dashboard: KPIs related to staff recruitment, retention and composition, e.g. number of open positions, or average days or cost per recruitment.[C2]
What do they do?
- Track and Monitor Workflows of Corporate functions and business processes
  - human resources, recruiting, sales, operations, security, information technology, project management, customer relationship management and many more departmental dashboards.
- Graphical display of high-level processes and then drill down into low level data. (allow senior executives to look deep within the corporate enterprise)ness dashboards.
3 Main Types of dashboards
- Stand alone software applications
- Web-browser based applications
- Desktop widgets (driven by a widget engine)
How to create a Dashboard?
- Digital dashboard projects involve
  - Business units as the driver
  - information technology department as the enabler.
- Careful Selection of Metrics for monitoring.
  - Key performance indicators
  - balanced scorecards
  - sales performance figures

Balance Scoreboards

Similar as Dashboards
- both visually display critical information,
- the difference is in the format: Scoreboards can open the quality of an operation while dashboards provide calculated direction. A balanced scoreboard has what they called a “prescriptive” format.
Components (Active Strategy)...
- Perspectives – groupings of high level strategic areas
- Objectives – verb-noun phrases pulled from a strategy plan
- Measures – also called Metric or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
- Spotlight Indicators – red, yellow, or green symbols that provide an at-a-glance view of a measure’s performance.
- Each of these sections ensures that a Balanced Scorecard is essentially connected to the businesses critical strategic needs.

References

B1. Michael Alexander and John Walkenbach, Excel Dashboards and Reports (Wiley, 2010)
B2. Victoria Hetherington, Dashboard Demystified: What is a Dashboard? (Hetherington, 2009)
B3. Peter McFadden CEO of ExcelDashboardWidgets "What is Dashboard Reporting". Retrieved: 2012-05-10.
B4. Steven Few, Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data (O'Reilly, 2006)
B5. Wayne W. Eckerson, Performance Dashboards: Measuring, Monitoring, and Managing Your Business (Wiley , 2010)
B6. Steven Few, Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data (O'Reilly, 2006)
B7. ZSL Inc., Dashboards Vs Scorecards – An Insight ZSL Inc. (2006)
B8. Stacey Barr, 7 Small Business Dashboard Design Dos and Don'ts (Barr, 2010)
C1. Peter McFadden, CEO of ExcelDashboardWidgets "What is Dashboard Reporting". Retrieved: 2012-05-10.
C2. a b Briggs, Jonathan. "Management Reports & Dashboard Best Practice". Target Dashboard. Retrieved 18 February 2013.
C3. "Microsoft refines Digital Dashboard concept". Retrieved 2009-06-09.

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