Datasheet

Preparing for Greatness

Imagine your manager asks you to create a dashboard that tells him everything

he should know about monthly service subscriptions. Do you jump to action

and slap together whatever comes to mind? Do you take a guess at what he

wants to see and hope it’s useful? These questions sound ridiculous but such

situations happen more that you think. I’m constantly called to action to create

the next great reporting tool but am rarely provided the time to gather the true

requirements for it. Between limited information and unrealistic deadlines, the

end product often ends up being unused or having little value.

This brings me to one of the key steps in preparing for dashboarding —

collecting user requirements.

In the non-IT world of the Excel analyst, user requirements are practically

useless because of sudden changes in project scope, constantly changing pri-

orities, and shifting deadlines. The gathering of user requirements is viewed to

be a lot of work and a waste of valuable time in the ever-changing business

environment. But as I mention at the start of this chapter, it’s time

to get into the dashboard state of mind.

Consider how many times a manager has asked you for an analysis and then

said “No, I meant this.” Or, “Now that I see it, I realize I need this.” As frustrating

as that can be for a single analysis, imagine running into this during the cre-

ation of a complex dashboard with several data integration processes. The

question is, would you rather spend your time on the front end gathering user

requirements or spend time painstakingly redesigning the dashboard you’ll

surely come to hate?

The process of gathering user requirements doesn’t have to be an overly

complicated or formal one. Here are some simple things you can do to ensure

you have a solid idea of the purpose of the dashboard.

Establish the audience and

purpose for the dashboard

Chances are your manager has been asked to create the reporting mechanism,

and he has passed the task to you. Don’t be afraid to clarify the source of the

initial request and talk to them about what they’re really asking for. Discuss the

purpose of the dashboard and the triggers that caused them to ask for a dash-

board in the first place. You may find, after discussing the matter, that a simple

Excel report meets their needs, foregoing the need for a full-on dashboard.

If a dashboard is indeed warranted, talk about who the end users are. Take

some time to meet with some of the end users and talk about how they’d use

the dashboard. Will the dashboard be used as a performance tool for regional

Part I: Making the Move to Dashboards

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