Although it is essential, the value your dashboard can achieve is not entirely dependent on the data you have available. It can become equally important to show the story behind your data in the most efficient way possible while critically assessing the audience for and purpose of your dashboard. A lack of focus on those fundamentals can result in an abundance of reports created without properly considering business needs.
Target audiences will be overrun with purposeless dashboards that do not show the required insights. Ultimately, dashboards have a low adoption rate, the traditional way of working in siloed environments continues, and potential growth through data-driven insights slumbers down. Sounds familiar? But how to get the right dashboard success requirements?
From these common pitfalls, suboptimal internal support and dashboard inefficiencies can be structurally addressed. They require a focus on the true purpose of your dashboard, which makes the dashboard both optimally functional and aligned with your organization’s needs.
Sufficient internal support throughout both the development and ongoing use of the dashboards is crucial. This begins with a deep understanding of the dashboard’s purpose and end users. What do they want to see, and more importantly, how do they want to see it? This understanding forms the foundation of your dashboard’s design and directly impacts how easily the data can be interpreted. Regular engagement with users ensures that the dashboard continues to meet their needs and tells a logical and coherent story. Remember, what seems obvious to a developer may not be clear to end users.
Let’s get practical – what can be done to get to the dashboard’s essentials? Enter our BI Canvas. This tool covers all the essential components that determine the effectiveness and adoption of your dashboard. Think of it as the blueprint for your dashboard. By carefully filling in each component, you ensure that you’re telling the right story, to the right audience, in the right way. By using this method, you can systematically address the key areas of dashboard development, ensuring that your dashboards are not only functional but also insightful and widely adopted.
The design of your dashboard is pivotal in making data look straightforward. Moreover, the importance of making your data as simple and quickly ingestible as possible can’t be stressed enough. The essence is to show the message that is hidden in your data that contains the answer to your organization’s needs and thus, the focus should be on those two things; your data story & your business requirements. A dashboard must communicate that message as clearly and quickly as possible.
There are many ways in which the story in your data can be conveyed by a dashboard. It can be done by disrupting changes in the current structure of your dashboard and the way-of-work of dashboard development, or by many small adjustments that altogether improve your storyline. By focusing on visual design, filtering, context, clear requirements and framing, the data in your dashboard can be converted into insights!
Curious about what the BI Canvas entails or how to improve data storytelling? Stay tuned for an update in the near future!
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Although it is essential, the value your dashboard can achieve is not entirely dependent on the data you have available. It can become equally important to show the story behind your data in the most efficient way possible while critically assessing the audience for and purpose of your dashboard. A lack of focus on those fundamentals can result in an abundance of reports created without properly considering business needs.
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