Business is about getting results!
Measuring the health of the business on a consistent basis will help business leaders and managers attain better results in both the short and long term.
Every business, department and team should have a set of clearly defined metrics. Most businesses, departments and teams have sets of reports that provide a picture of success or failure in the area reported. Sales teams have individual sales reports & pipeline reports. Finance teams have P&L's, cash flows & balance sheets. Marketing has ROI reports, survey results & demand generation reports. Problem is that many managers and executives have to comb through each report to get a picture of health of the business. This is ineffective!
A business dashboard follows the same concept as a automobile dashboard. As a driver, you can constantly get an update on your speed, fuel level, miles driven, engine temperature and the like. This provides the driver with the ability to stay ahead of any problems and catch red flags (i.e. check engine light). A business dashboard aggregates the key metrics of which a manager or executive wants to track helping him or her to avoid the metaphoric crash or engine trouble.
Few tips for creating a dashboard for your company or team:
A dashboard can provide a tremendous amount of value for a business leader. This one page document can be easily carried and act as a tool for meeting prep (for more tips on meeting prep read: Meeting Prep (or Lack Thereof!). A dashboard can provide the holder with the ability to quickly and accurately deliver a status update and field a variety of questions. Not to mention the explicit ability to proactively address yellow/red flags earlier.
ACTION ITEMS
Measuring the health of the business on a consistent basis will help business leaders and managers attain better results in both the short and long term.
Every business, department and team should have a set of clearly defined metrics. Most businesses, departments and teams have sets of reports that provide a picture of success or failure in the area reported. Sales teams have individual sales reports & pipeline reports. Finance teams have P&L's, cash flows & balance sheets. Marketing has ROI reports, survey results & demand generation reports. Problem is that many managers and executives have to comb through each report to get a picture of health of the business. This is ineffective!
A business dashboard follows the same concept as a automobile dashboard. As a driver, you can constantly get an update on your speed, fuel level, miles driven, engine temperature and the like. This provides the driver with the ability to stay ahead of any problems and catch red flags (i.e. check engine light). A business dashboard aggregates the key metrics of which a manager or executive wants to track helping him or her to avoid the metaphoric crash or engine trouble.
Few tips for creating a dashboard for your company or team:
- Keep it simple! It should all fit on one page and whomever updates it should be able to do so with relative ease on a regular basis. There are also some software programs that will help you manage dash boarding
- Identify the key information you want to have. Data collected by businesses typically fits into a few categories. Leading indicators and lagging indicators are two often collected. As an example, in sales a leading indicator might be a pipeline report (number of prospects in the queue and stage in the sales cycle). A lagging indicator in sales might be contracts cancelled. When creating a dashboard, identify what information you want and how one set of data relates other sets of data on the dashboard. You better be able to explain the similarity or variance.
- Make the report visual whenever possible. Bar charts, pie charts, dials are all great and allow the reader to quickly get a picture of the status. A dashboard isn't supposed to have all the data. If there are questions or you need to drill deeper you can then go to the more detailed reports. The dashboard is a high level document.
- Create the dashboard with the CEO in mind. If the dashboard ended up in the CEO's hands could s/he understand it and, except for difference of opinion/perspective, draw many of the same conclusions as the person who populated the dashboard?
A dashboard can provide a tremendous amount of value for a business leader. This one page document can be easily carried and act as a tool for meeting prep (for more tips on meeting prep read: Meeting Prep (or Lack Thereof!). A dashboard can provide the holder with the ability to quickly and accurately deliver a status update and field a variety of questions. Not to mention the explicit ability to proactively address yellow/red flags earlier.
ACTION ITEMS
- Review your business reports. What key information do you need from each?
- Identify the proper layout of the dashboard. Which data will be represented in data charts? Which will be represented graphically?
- Create a template that allows the easy capture of the key data points (or research a good dashboard software program)
- Review the report. Will it serve as a single document to provide status updates and answer key questions? Can the CEO read it?
- Give it a try! Send an e-mail to TheRossNetwork@gmail.com or leave a voice message (left side of page) with your thoughts on how it's going, ask questions or share your success!
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