TWHS#101: Death by Dashboard: And How to Avoid It

Hi Folks

"How do you bring dashboards to life?" There's a lot of data out there and a lot of dashboards, so I get asked this a lot. Let's be honest dashboards can be pretty boring. Insightful but boring.

A few weeks ago I delivered a Technical Storytelling course and this was one of the bespoke practical challenges. Liv needed to bring dashboards alive when she presented them. When she talked to customers they found it pretty dry and overwhelming. Here's the advice I shared with her:

Don't do this:

• Navigate to each chart or table.
• Give an in depth explainer.
• Tell everyone every data issue with each component.
• Repeat until every chart has been covered.

Death by feature is not the way! Why?

• People get bored and zone out.
• People rarely need to use every chart in a dashboard.
• People will forget most things you say anyway.

So what should you do?

Describe a real world problem and solve it with the dashboard. Bring it to life. Simple!

For example:

• I am an marketeer and I need to understand which marketing channels are having the most impact.
• I am a manager and I need to understand how my team are performing.
• I am a retail manager and I need to understand customer sentiment in stores.

Solve the problem using the dashboard. And make sure there is some good data in there. Either the customers own data or something that looks real and makes the dashboard relevant.

Then follow up after the meeting with examples with good resources. That could be:

• Role based examples of solving common problems.
• Quality documentation for those that love to get in the weeds
• Inspirational video walk throughs to inspire people in the future.

This approach brings the dashboard to life, engages people and really shows the power the dashboard brings.

Don't do death by dashboard.

Hope this helps.

BenP

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Whenever you're ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

• Leaders In Tech: Raise the impact of your team.  Make them more influential, memorable and successful with customers everyday.  The Technical Storytelling Professional Program enables them to create clarity, generate energy and drive the results you need.
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