From dashboards to decision boards: What growing data teams need to know
Brandon McGee
“We start with “why,” plot the best course of action, track and analyze KPIs and adjust based on the insights we find, before we do it all over again. In our ever-faster-moving business environment, executive leaders strive for a clear understanding of their business data, and to digest it quickly and execute strategies without slowing innovation. But this process cannot happen without support from data-savvy teams.
Decision boards, on the other hand, are fluid. They aggregate the data from cross-organizational channels to paint a clear, easy-to-follow picture that goes beyond descriptive metrics. These are often custom builds designed for an organization’s specific needs. Varying by the level of analytics maturity and design resources, decision boards can also illustrate diagnostic metrics, or why something happened; predictive metrics, or what is likely to happen; and prescriptive metrics, or what needs to happen next. Making the jump from dashboards to decision boards requires basic knowledge of design thinking, which when integrated into an organization’s culture can advance its analytics and reporting capabilities.
Finally, be relentless in your pursuit of the “why.” It will make your predictive charts stronger, more intuitive and more sustainable in the long run.”
