A dashboard is one screen that shows the company's key figures, updated automatically from its systems, so management sees what is happening now. It lets management decide without waiting for a month-end report, and its value lies in having few figures, each with a clear source and owner, not in many charts.
Step by step
- 1
Start with decisions
What decisions does management make every week? The dashboard shows only what those decisions need.
- 2
Choose a few indicators
Sales against target, collections, stock, late orders, and the indicators specific to your business.
- 3
Connect the sources automatically
Figures come straight from the sales, accounting and stock systems, not from spreadsheets updated by hand.
- 4
Design for a quick read
Each figure next to its target and the previous period, a color that flags deviations, and the option to drill into details.
- 5
Decide who sees what
A full dashboard for the owner and senior management, and one for each manager covering their department, working on mobile too.
- 6
Review it regularly
A short, fixed meeting on the dashboard itself, with an owner for each figure who explains any deviation.
A dashboard fed from manual spreadsheets falls behind and its figures conflict, so people stop trusting it within weeks. Connect it to the systems first.
- what does dashboard mean
- company performance dashboard