Information Dashboards: Why use Excel?

Excel is the most widely used tool for analyzing information and presenting it to others.  Yet it suffers from inherent limitations – the so called “Excel Hell”.  Specifically, using Excel results in:

• many “versions of the truth” as people tweak numbers and send or save new versions of a particular Excel spreadsheet
• confusing spreadsheet formats – one senior executive we know of joined a new organization and asked for a simple consolidated Excel report from all divisions.  It took 20 people 8 weeks to produce it.  All previous Excel reports had been created in by each division in a different format and were completely inconsistent with each other.
• arguments about whether the data in the Excel reports are correct and/or current

So why do I recommend starting an Information Dashboard project using Excel?

The key to dashboard success is to implement as quickly as possible, show the dashboard to people and respond quickly to improve its contents and format.  An Excel dashboard prototype is the fastest way to do this, allowing you to quickly iterate through possible designs until you have a satisfactory result.  Then the engineering can begin.

The most difficult part of any information dashboard project is selecting the metrics that should appear on it.  This task is difficult because it requires managers to think deeply about the business they are in and what they are trying to achieve.  The environment most people are operating in is complex and fast moving – it is very difficult to extricate oneself from the noise and figure out what the core objectives are, and how to move forward towards them.

Metrics also must be chosen carefully to avoid unintended consequences – for example, causing people to suboptimize or game the system.

An Excel Dashboard prototype is a great way to run throught the metric selection exercise, but also to figure out which views of the data are most important.  For example:

• historical performance (trend chart or sparkline)
• comparison against target (traffic light, bullet graph etc.)
• comparison across metrics (usually not wise as the magnitude and direction can vary)
• comparison of metrics across locations and products (for example)

These are key aspects of successful dashboard design, and creating them in commercial dashboard tools may take more time than you have in your prototyping cycle.  Excel Dashboard prototypes are the best way to do this learning.

To learn more, please see http://DashboardSuccess.com