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monitor, and manage business performance. Dashboards are used to visualize
organizational data and utilize different performance measurement models to
identify and implement measures for all levels in the organization. There is
an extensive practitioner-oriented literature on dashboards, although there
is a lack of academic literature. In this section, we characterize dashboards,
give some practical hints for their design, and implement a dashboard for the
Northwind case study.
There are many definitions of the dashboard concept. However, since the
visible part of a dashboard system is its user interface, most of them focus
on its visual features. A classic definition due to Stephen Few states that a
dashboard is a “visual display of the most important information needed to
achieve one or more objectives, consolidated and arranged on a single screen
so the information can be monitored at a glance.”
Dashboards help to make fact-based decisions, using the right data,
delivered reliably in an easily accessed and perceivable form. Note that
decision makers require data in context to manage performance over time.
Thus, although the current status of business is important, decision makers
require comparisons of current values to past performance and to future
objectives. We must also take into account that the time horizon and scope
of data needed differ significantly based on the roles in the organization.
An executive, focused on achieving enterprise-wide strategic goals, requires
a high-level view across different lines of business and covering months or
years. Business managers, on the other hand, must achieve daily or weekly
performance goals and require not only a narrower time frame and kind of
data but also, if current rates are off-target, the ability to quickly investigate
the amount and cause of variation of a parameter. Business analysts have
a much broader set of needs. Rather than knowing what they are looking
for, they often approach performance data with ad hoc questions; therefore,
they may require a time frame ranging between just a few hours up to many
weeks.
9.3.1 Types of Dashboards
A well-known classification of dashboards proposes three high-level cate-
gories: strategic, operational, and analytical.
Strategic dashboards
provide a quick overview of the status of an
organization, assisting executive decisions such as the definition of long-
term goals. Strategic dashboards, therefore, do not require real-time data:
the focus is not on what is going on right now but in the past performance.
Strategic dashboard data may be quantitative or qualitative. For instance, in
the Northwind case study, the sales manager wants trend data on revenues
and sales. Qualitatively, a human resource manager may want the top ten and
worst ten salesmen. Because of their broad time horizon, strategic dashboards
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