Elevator Pitch
You are doing dashboards wrong, which is why they are so difficult. This starts with the mission statement of “Summarize in detail the status of the Universe in one screen”. Instead you should “Summarize in sufficient detail, what needs MY attention in MY universe, in one screen.” Lets discuss it.
Description
Dashboards make me MAD. They are impossible to do and make anyone happy, they tend to be flashy, hallow simulations of helpful, and overly complex. As a color blind, dyslexic, get’er done kind of guy, they make me mad. Well they did until I changed how I thought of them. Rather than a one size fits all endeavor, dashboards should be persona based. Each major persona should be served their own dashboard that answers the question “What is the status of MY compliance universe, and what needs MY attention?”
Come see our quick review of how this mindset change can make your dysfunctional dashboards actually deliver a useful purpose.
Notes
Dashboards make me MAD. They are impossible to do and make anyone happy, they tend to be flashy, hollow simulations of helpful, and overly complex. As a color blind, dyslexic, get’er done kind of guy, they make me mad. Well they did until I changed how I thought of them. Rather than a one size fits all endeavor, dashboards should be persona based. Each major persona should be served their own dashboard that answers the question “What is the status of MY compliance universe, and what needs MY attention?”
So, the senior suit persona needs a dashboard of what ‘needs’ his attention. If the persona that is the target user for the dashboard needs to decide, approve, allocate resource or take some overt other action (including willful inaction) then it goes on the dashboard. If it does not, don’t put it on the dashboard. If there is more information that is needed, a drill down can be provided, but now you are likely in the persona of a junior suit or senior tie. The mission of THAT dashboard is directed to that persona “What is the status of my compliance universe and what here needs MY attention?” Those issues do NOT generally need to be on the Senior Suit Dashboard. This dashboard may ‘drill down’ to a more junior persona. Each level answers the same questions of “What is the status of MY compliance universe, and what here needs MY attention?”. Each level has COMPLETELY different answers. The senior tech dash board probably has dozens of ‘yellow” and ‘red’ status items, but that persona has the authority and resources to address those issues. Anything that is outside of this level of authority and resources, or is materially out of compliance, will also show up on next persona’s dash boards. Not show up automatically, but only when that higher persona needs to pay attention.
A major contention is when authority is delegated. The responsibility is still at the more senior level so which dashboards report a delegated authority? These internal political decisions are transient, so have the possibility to derail a successful persona based dashboard design.
Another contention is ‘in the drill down” dashboards. If the CEO or CIO dashboards are showing individual server utilization metrics, hands down you have failed. CxO dashboards report compliance. Compliance to schedule, budget, income, and performance metrics. Being in compliance IS all that matters at this level. Technician, manager, and director dashboards may show individual server utilization metrics as the ‘reason’ for an out of compliance situation, but the main dashboard should focus on compliance.
This mindset helps with limiting the scope of the dashboards, which in turn makes them constructible, within the responsibility, authority, accountability confines. It does add to the complication of what ‘automatically’ gets forwarded to the next level dashboard, and are the drill downs into a detail page or another dash board. But the mindset change and simplification of the question “What is the status of MY compliance universe, and what here needs MY attention?” makes the task possible while it makes the target persona happy. They still may be too flashy and complex for the color blind, dyslexic kid, (that is me) but at least now dashboards have a chance to actually be helpful.