What to Consider When You’re Developing Your Dashboard
The points of data you could track in your business are vast and (seemingly) never-ending. Does every metric you identify belong on your dashboard? Of course not. Metrics can’t all matter at equal levels for your business and they can’t all fit on your dashboard. If that’s something that’s been causing trouble for you, here’s what to consider when you’re developing your dashboard: the Who, What, When, Where, and Why (and their little cousin How).
You can use the 5 Ws (and 1 H) to structure the measurement process of your business.
Why and What
Why and What go together, and you have to know these before you can do anything else. They are your starting point. The What are your metrics (which you then whittle down to your KPIs) and the Why are the objectives they support. You can’t have one without the other.
First, identify your ultimate goals for each strategic objective. This is the first step in building your dashboard (the Why). Why do these goals matter for your business? Why do they need to be on your dashboard?
Then, you determine your metrics (the What) and clarify which of those metrics are KPIs. (Not every metrics is a KPI.) The KPIs are what belong on your dashboard.
Keep in mind what makes a good KPI: It has to start with the CEO’s vision and travel down through the company in actionable steps. For that reason, it should also be simple for everyone to understand and measure. It should be transformative in that the person or people responsible for it has the resources they need to meet those goals. Next, the metrics reporting should be timely. Metrics should help influence decisions and action plans. Finally, the information needs to be transparent. The people who need to see it should find it simple to read and understand.
When
How often does this dashboard need to go out? Do you need to review it weekly, monthly, or quarterly? Determine a specific due date that leads up to key decision points within the business. Let’s say the DOO has a quarterly strategic meeting with the CEO; you’d want to have the dashboard updated and reviewed before that very important meeting.
Who
Who is this dashboard for? Identify the key decision-makers. This is your audience. Additionally, identify who owns the measurement responsibilities and who owns the results (it may not be the same department). For example, the DOO might own the expense-cutting results; they are responsible and accountable to the actual results. Someone else may be responsible for keeping the data clean, making sure expenses are classified correctly. Having accountants and DOOs work together can be really strong and helpful. Identify who owns what.
Where
Next, identify Where the data comes from by finding the software that houses the data points you need. Sometimes you can get this information from team members—so you can go to the person in the data maintenance role to find out where something is. The CEO might know, but if I’m going to be really resourceful in my role as a DOO, I’m going to go to the team.
Understand the KPI/Metric calculation and the data points you need to do that.
How
This is the truly mechanical “How” this thing works and/or looks. How should it look on the spreadsheet? How should it go into the dashboard? How should the dashboard best present this information for good decision-making? What visualization software do you need?
You may find this information pretty difficult to parse through (because it is!). That’s why I offer intensive sessions to do it with you, or even do it for you. It’s all fast-tracked with my intensives process. There are three options that I want to update you on:
Financial Dashboard – In this package, we can go over your entire system, making sure you’re tracking the right metrics and building a fully-automated, beautiful dashboard tailored to your business.
Website Performance Dashboard – Here we’ll work together to create or implement a marketing-only dashboard.
Audit Google Analytics – Even if you’re not ready to invest in a full shebang custom dashboard, we can get your metrics/KPI strategy together and set up your Google Analytics correctly. This will be a HUGE help to you.