I’m fascinated by the obsession some folks have with dashboards. Not the kind you find when you climb behind the wheel of a car. Those are way too simple for some folks. Nope. I mean the business dashboards some folks stare at trying to make sense of what’s going on in their business. Some of them have graphs, dials, and, in the words of Arlo Guthrie, twenty-seven eight-by-ten color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to figure out if things were going as planned. Data or information? You just know they’re not the same.
I’ve had clients show me the dashboard they use and I begin to ask them questions about the information it gives them. Often there are long lists of data points but very little in the way of actionable information. Other times they’re using a dashboard that was written for someone with a very different point of view – their job responsibilities might be different, their comfort level with information might be different – and yet they can’t alter the dashboard to suit their particular needs. Kind of like driving a car with no movable seats – possible but not very comfortable and maybe a little dangerous.
I tend not to use these things. I find them too canned and I prefer to have a good grasp on the information systems themselves so I can ask the questions relevant to the minute. It’s not that I don’t like regular reports. I expect, however, that they’re not a regurgitation of data points but thoughtful analyses describing the guidance the data provides. “Traffic is up 12%” is not as useful as “our linking strategy to bloggers is paying off since overall traffic is up 12% but referral traffic is up 35%.”
Do you use dashboards (outside of your car, I mean)? Have anything cool about them you want to share?
Consult Keith 