What is a Dashboard?

Quick reference

• 00:03 Before we start building dashboards, it helps to have some understandings
• 00:08 of the key concepts behind both data visualization and what dashboards are and
• 00:13 are not supposed to do.
• 00:14 So that's where we're gonna start.
• 00:17 The goals of data visualization are actually pretty simple
• 00:21 It's to help turn data into information.
• 00:24 These two things are not even close to equivalent.
• 00:27 Data is just raw points that have been captured, often times by machines,
• 00:32 sometimes by humans.
• 00:34 But we end up with this massive volume and
• 00:37 variety of data, and it doesn't really actually tell us anything,
• 00:40 It's overwhelming in its size and its complexity.
• 00:44 The job of data visualization is to take all of that data and
• 00:47 actually distill it into information which will allow users to quickly spot
• 00:52 key pieces that are actually relevant to them.
• 00:56 Done right, we can actually do this,
• 00:58 we can engage the user by illustrating a story around our data.
• 01:02 And this is the kind of the key thing that we really wanna get to with data
• 01:05 visualization.
• 01:06 If you've ever had the joys of reading a financial statement with lots and lots of
• 01:10 columns on it and everything else you know that some people seem to think that's
• 01:15 information, but to a lot of people with lots of pieces on there, it's just data.
• 01:18 It's overwhelming, can't really consume it.
• 01:21 And this is where moving into a visual stack helps people get into their data,
• 01:26 helps people understand their illustrations and then get information out
• 01:29 of what they're actually looking at rather than just being overwhelmed.
• 01:34 So what's dashboarding?
• 01:36 Well, a dashboard is a visual summary.
• 01:40 It's a collection of all of your key information metrics in one place and
• 01:45 this is a big big piece around this whole thing.
• 01:49 The most important thing about a dashboard is it should show your
• 01:52 most important statistics.
• 01:55 This is the deal where you basically get one page
• 01:58 to show the most important things around your organization.
• 02:02 One of the things that I know personally I've been guilty of an accounting and
• 02:06 a lot of other people have as well is trying to fit too much information
• 02:10 on one page.
• 02:10 And this is my rule of thumb for building dashboards is that you get one page,
• 02:15 every pixel is precious you try and
• 02:17 put as little on in really distilled down to the specific story you need.
• 02:21 It's all about your key performance indicators and
• 02:24 your most important statistics.
• 02:26 And that's actually the hardest part to build of a dashboard,
• 02:28 is figuring out what should be there.
• 02:32 One thing that you probably want to be aware of is that dashboards often, but
• 02:36 they don't always, include a variety of charts.
• 02:38 We have dashboards out there that don't exist with any charts at all.
• 02:42 We've got other ones that are all charts.
• 02:44 But the key part is that every one of these little visual
• 02:47 items is there to indicate something specific.
• 02:50 How close are we to budget?
• 02:52 What are the sales for this particular period?
• 02:55 It's things like that that really start to pop, those key
• 02:58 things that tell us whether or not the business is doing what it should be doing.
• 03:03 The overall intent of every dashboard is the quick consumption of key indicators.
• 03:08 And this is the real trick with a dashboard.
• 03:11 The idea is that you should be able to get in, see if your business is in control and
• 03:16 get out and about that quick, that's what it's all about for a dashboard.
• 03:22 Now, let's go look at the dashboard's purpose,
• 03:25 because this is something else that's really kinda key.
• 03:28 If we look at this dashboard, this is the dashboard of a car, the question you have
• 03:33 to ask yourself is, is this dashboard trying to provide you with any solutions?
• 03:40 And when you start to really look at it you go well, not really,
• 03:44 it doesn't provide any solutions at all.
• 03:46 It can say hey, there's no fuel intake, but
• 03:48 does it tell you where you can actually fill up with fuel, no.
• 03:53 It tells you the speed right now is at 0,
• 03:55 Does it tell you how to actually fix that problem?
• 03:58 No it doesn't.
• 03:59 Dashboards are all about exposing problems.
• 04:02 This is what a dashboard's purpose actually is.
• 04:05 We've all worked in a business where we've had someone who's micromanaged us.
• 04:09 They're trying to get us to change things where a business process is already
• 04:13 working well, and it drives us crazy, every one of us.
• 04:17 Where the manager's time is better focused is being focused on the stuff that's not
• 04:21 working, and that's what the dashboard is all about.
• 04:23 It's that collection of key indicators in one place, where you can come in,
• 04:28 you can look, see what's in control, so you can ignore it.
• 04:32 See what's out of control so you can focus on it.
• 04:35 And again, it's get in, look at what's not in control, and get out so that you
• 04:40 can go and figure out what's going wrong and actually start working on that issue.
• 04:44 Again, remember the dashboard is not about providing solutions,
• 04:47 It's about exposing those problems so
• 04:49 you're not wasting your time on the things that are already working.

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