How are you measuring the success of the dashboards you create?
You can’t measure their success of by the number of dashboards you’ve created, or how quickly you create and share them. Take a step back and consider the core purpose of the dashboard: to provide fast data; to help executives and teams make informed decisions; to harness the power of the piles of data your business takes in every day. Simply put, you could have 80 dashboards or just five—if they’re not being used to move the needle on your business, then you’re failing.
Okay, so how do you know if your dashboards are helping your business? These are some of the top ways you can tell your dashboards are impacting business decisions.
You’re being asked to go deeper.
Has someone stopped you in the hallway recently and asked you to dig one layer deeper on a dashboard, or a metric within a dashboard? Perhaps they want marketing revenue categorized by channel, or marketing team, or campaign. Maybe it was a sales manager who wanted you to pull in sales by a specific product line. Whatever it may be, it points to one thing: people are thinking about the dashboards you’ve provided. They’re mulling over the data and they’re hungry for more.
You’ve been asked to explain an insight you’ve uncovered.
If you’re being emailed or pulled into meetings to guide a discussion sparked by a dashboard-derived insight, good job! Important conversations are being had because of the insights and data you’ve pulled together. And, that’s exactly what dashboards are meant to do. They are one version of the truth. Everyone is accessing the same numbers, the same charts, the same story of what’s unfolding for your business.
You’ve been asked to pull a dashboard into a presentation.
This one is a no-brainer. Having a dashboard readied for presentation viewing is the ultimate indicator of success. Not only are folks within your business talking about your dashboard, they’re referencing it as a compass for guiding important decisions. They want to share it with others.
You’re being asked to create additional dashboards.
When fellow workers are asking you to help them set up additional dashboards, you know they’ve come to realize the value they bring to the business. They get it now. They don’t want to comb through spreadsheets and numerous data sources for the answers, they want to access it near real-time, in a shareable, easy-to-understand format.
The common theme: interaction
A common thread in your success is interaction and engagement. To continue this engagement, consider meeting one-on-one with individuals or groups to assess their needs, make changes to existing dashboards or help them create new ones. You may even wish to consider a “dashboard onboarding” process where you introduce new employees to dashboards as they join your company.
The underlying value in all of these efforts: creating a data-driven company culture and gaining a true competitive advantage.