How to Build Dashboards That Help Managers Make Decisions

Many dashboards begin with a list of available fields. They end up as a wall of charts that nobody opens. Begin with the manager instead. Starting this way keeps the first version small, and it gives the manager a reason to open the page every morning instead of once a quarter.

Ask what they decide each week. A sales head may decide which leads to chase. A store manager may decide what to reorder. A production head may decide which job to move up.

Write each decision as a question. Which orders will miss their date? Which customers have gone quiet? A dashboard panel exists to answer one such question.

For every question, choose one measure that answers it. Avoid giving three similar figures. A manager who must pick between them will pick none.

Then agree a trigger. At what point does the number call for action? Without one, a figure is only a report. With one, it becomes a prompt.

Define the measure in a single sentence with the accountant or the team lead present. Overdue means past the agreed date, not past the invoice date. Settle such points before building. Settling it early prevents the familiar meeting where two people hold different numbers for the same word and neither can explain why they differ.

A bare figure invites argument. Is forty orders pending good or bad? Show the same measure against last week, against the target or against the normal range.

Let the manager move from the figure to the records behind it. One click from overdue orders to the list of those orders saves a phone call. It also builds trust in the number.

Keep the layout calm. Put the most urgent panel at the top left. Use colour only to show state, such as late or on time, and keep labels in plain words.

A panel with no owner decays. Someone must be responsible for the definition and for acting when the trigger fires. Write their name or role next to the panel in your design notes.

Review the dashboard in the regular management meeting. Ask of each panel whether it changed a decision last month. If not, move it to a secondary page or remove it.

Fewer panels are easier to defend. Most managers work well with six to eight. Fewer panels are easier to defend. Most managers work well with six to eight, because each one can be read and acted on within a minute of opening the page.

Consider an owner of a distribution firm. Their weekly decisions are which customers to call about dues, which items to reorder and which routes to adjust. That gives three questions and three panels.

The dues panel shows invoices past their agreed date by customer, with the oldest first. The reorder panel shows items below their set level against sales over recent weeks. The route panel shows deliveries completed against those planned.

Each panel has a named owner and a trigger. GullySystem’s Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools service builds dashboards from this kind of brief.