Information Dashboards for Collaboration

Information Dashboards are typically thought of as individual productivity tools. Stephen Few's popular definition of a dashboard implies this:

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.

(from Dashboard Confusion Revisited)

But the real value of a dashboard is the change in the nature and quality of collaborative interactions that occur betwen managers and executives as a result.

Many executive meetings are spent in useless poltical squabbles over who has the correct data. An information dashboard which all agree contains the "single definition of the truth" ends this unproductive conversation, and allows a new and more useful conversation to develop.

Initially, the broad availability of data (even for detailed performance of other organizational units) can cause some fear and push-back. Yet when all agree to "see the world the way it is and not as they wish it would be", they become able to contribute their creativity as a team to improving the whole organization, and not just their individual silos.

The upshot of open collaboration around a trusted single source of data is that organizations can learn faster about what works and what doesn't work. Each action in a remote organizational unit can be considered an experiment - if it works, it can quickly be deployed to the rest of the organization instead of being blocked by parochial leaders looking to advance their own careers. If a failure occurs in one part of the organization, the diagnosed cause can ensure that it doesn't occur anywhere else.

Information Dashboard Success

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