Informativedashboard

A good dashboard provides the management a clue of how to enforce management discipline via the insightful understanding of key performance parameters to achieve desired business results.

Senior business executives focus on strategy management, performance oversight, and governance enhancement. A dashboard is a tool to visualize key performance indicators and as such, it certainly must show the metrics of the values and the effectiveness of the measured activities produced. 

As each executive has his/her own special area that they like to peek into knowing everything is on track. Transparency works for everyone. With the right tools, the top leadership team has significant influence on implementing performance management into practice in the right way.

Visualize key performance indicators to improve decision effectiveness: Executive management always responds to data. Any decision that needs to be taken by the executives including budgetary approvals, approvals for schedule extension, approvals for additional resources, etc. A dashboard tries to present key performance indicators in a visualized way and highlight important business aspects for decision guidance. It offers a conceived way for executives to gain a wider perspective on their strategic decisions. The dashboard is a good tool to provide input, create a degree of abstractness in presentations that enables executives to have their say in making effective decisions based on quality information of productivity, performance, and profitability at strategic areas.

Many fancy dashboards, maps, or policy visualizations aren’t designed with the end-users in mind and won’t help executives answer the most basic questions. Ineffective dashboards are the result of designers’ failure to intimately understand the business model and decision-making process; it is not capturing the essence of the business in the graphical interactive interface. An effective dashboard is a support decision instrument, which presents the information on a single screen/page with a simple, direct, intuitive graphical display to allow the management to make information based decisions.

Visualize the metrics of the values and the effectiveness of strategy execution: There is a lack of active involvement in strategy execution management at the executive level. An effective dashboard helps business executives set the top prioritization agenda and overcome key business challenges. One of the important goals of a well-designed performance dashboard is to clarify business strategy, determine key performance indicators, analyze if the performance data is available and of good quality. A Dashboard needs to be light, focus on Key Performance Indicators to enable instantaneous and informed decisions to be made at a glance.

Fancy design of dashboard doesn’t mean updated or effective. If you had a situation where the organizational response to some "dial movement" was obvious, then there's little point in presenting that information via a dashboard and waiting for some bored executive to notice. Besides the ‘essential” indicators like cost (budget) and time (schedule), there are as many preferred items as executives can think of and their presentation preferences are equally varied. Some strategy relevant issues that the executives care about include such as: any deviations in schedule cost with reasons; observed business benefits/outcomes; key risks & issues with mitigation steps

Provides certain governance insight of evaluation, scope, and monitoring: Governance can begin with frameworks and policies to be put in place, depending on the nature, scale, and complexity of the organization, Corporate governance has a direct link to each business and its processes, not only from the financial results, but also from the involvement and signs being displayed inside the organization, about what guidance, values, and principles governing the company's commercial activities. An executive dashboard helps the management understand risks and conduct, enabling them to facilitate the successful functioning of an organization and ensures boundaries are appropriately set and adhered to and there are adequate controls in place to operate responsibly in accordance with its values.

Corporate governance could be part of strategic planning because if it isn't, strategic planning becomes a synonym for wishful thinking. There is a very real risk that governance as a discipline will begin to lose focus of its prime purpose if it does not address strategically important emerging issues. Corporate governance has a great impact on corporate performance, not through governance structure directly, but through good governance behavior. The executive’s dashboard helps the corporate executives stay focused on the most crucial matters, enhance accountability and create conditions to improve business performance, especially for long-term business growth.

A good dashboard provides the management a clue of how to enforce management discipline via the insightful understanding of key performance parameters so that desired business results can be achieved effectively. It’s an important decision-making tool to capture "the essence of the business” in the graphical interactive interface, illuminating critical issues that need to be prioritized and improving the overall information-based management effectiveness. The key is to keep the dashboard crisp, readable while highlighting important aspects for decision/guidance from executive management.

Posted in: KPIs,Performance Master