how to design a performance management dashboard for real...

How to Design a Performance

Management Dashboard for Real

Business Value?

Vera Lucia Kovacs

[email protected] Vera Lucia Kovacs

About me Independent consultant (architect, designer, business analyst, developer, team leader) on data warehouse / business intelligence projects.

Originally: software engineer

-> technical consultant for business users

-> business architect on development projects

Currently:

Technical team lead of a performance management project (Telenor)



Performance Management Goals

Dashboard Elements

Implementation Process

Design a successful dashboard is

rather ART than SCIENCE

rather psychology than technology


„Analytics requires „Purple People”” Wayne Eckerson


Goals of a Performance management dashboard

Show performance - focused

Call attention to the problems

Help to analyze / Help what to analyze

Trends, Fact vs Target,

Year on Year, MoM

Bad performing KPIs, gaps, declining trends

Drill down, check drivers, Initiate deep analysis

Make decisions, action points Drive actions


3 Key Elements of a Dashboard

Content: KPIs & Dimensions

Structure: Layers, Pages, SubPages Visualizations


Key Performance Indicators

• Derived from strategy, reflect to business goals & focus

• Defined in Glossary & Accepted by business owners

• Understandable, good names • Fact & Target available • Distinguish between KPIs:

– Result /strategic KPIs (Revenue, Churn, Profit) – Action / tactical KPIs (Nbr of page visitors, Nbr of

campain offers) – Operational KPIs


Performance Management Dashboard Structure

Single Screen Approach

All important information to

one page without any

interaction

Support Storytelling

Logical flow of pages

(some tools support

storytelling)

Reflect to the structure of business

Customized

No general recipe


My 3 Favorite Visualizations Sparklines & Microcharts Symbols

Map


[ESRI for Microstrategy]

Simple tricks for a nice design


• Frames help to structure the information

• Size of frames must be aligned

• Title of frames help to understand

• Use a pre-defined palette • Keep in my the company

standards

• Use the same fonts • Fixed list of font size

Frames Fonts

Colors

• Minimal design • Pixel perfect • Consistent • Test options

Overall

• Minimize grids to avoid Excel impression

Grid

• Use short names on dashboard

(e.g. custom list of values in dimensions)

Short Names

Performance Management Dashboard Design & Implementation Process

Insight to business processes, business problems Understand business goals, strategy, drivers

Mock-up development

Development

First Set of KPIs & Dimensions

Business Understanding

KPI definitions, alignment, Glossary Data preparation

Design and create mock-up (of several mock-ups) showing the dashboard design and functions.

Collecting comments and experiences

Implementation of a working version of dashboard. Collecting feedbacks and further requirements.

Continuous Improvement

Handling new KPI requirements Improvement and enhancement of functionality


Dashboard design & implementation is a fully iterative process. Success comes from:

• Close cooperation with business • Delivery of small drops continously • New requirements are always welcome – no fixed scope at

the beginning (just a vision)


Some tips & tricks for business understanding

Involvement in business meetings & warrooms

Present some small parts (reports, visualizations) and collect feedbacks Try to use it yourself: collect business actions

based on the dashboard

2.

3.

4.


1.

Check and review existing reports.

Key Success Factors of a Performance Management Dashboard Implementation

Everything starts with a good data layer

Beautiful Design

React quickly for change requirements

Users need help and coaching

Present new ideas / improvements proactively

Deep business understanding by involvement


Thank you!


how to design a performance management dashboard for real...

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