Business Dashboards E-Book

Nils H. Rasmussen

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 235

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009

Beschreibung

Focusing on designing the right dashboards for use in an organization, this timely, full color book reveals how to successfully deploy dashboards by building the optimal software architecture and dashboard design. In addition, it describes the value of this popular technology to a business and how it can have a significant impact on performance improvement. A unique collection of more than 120 dashboard images are organized by category. One of the chapters provides a step-by-step description of the key performance indicator (KPIs) design process. One of the appendices contains more than 1,000 examples of KPIs to help design the content of dashboards. The book also describes all the steps in a dashboard implementation and offers related advice. Nils Rasmussen (West Hollywood, CA) is cofounder and Principal of Solver, Inc. Claire Y. Chen (Long Beach, CA) is a Senior Business Intelligence Architect at Solver, Inc. Manish Bansal (Irvine, CA) is Vice President of Sales at Solver, Inc.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Preface

Book Summary

PART 1 - INTRODUCTION TO DASHBOARDS

chapter 1 - Dashboard Definition

chapter 2 - Dashboards’ Role in a Business Intelligence Solution

ENTERPRISE PORTALS

DASHBOARDS AND STRATEGY

DASHBOARDS AND PLANNING

DASHBOARDS AND REPORTING

DASHBOARDS AND ANALYTICS

chapter 3 - Why Dashboards Have Become so Popular

DASHBOARD BENEFITS

IF IT CANNOT BE MEASURED, DO NOT BOTHER

chapter 4 - Types of Dashboards

STRATEGIC DASHBOARDS

TACTICAL DASHBOARDS

OPERATIONAL DASHBOARDS

chapter 5 - Designing Metrics and Key Performance Indicators

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN METRICS AND KPIS

TEN STEPS TO SUCCESSFUL KPI AND METRIC DESIGN

A CLOSING NOTE AND WHAT TO EXPECT IN THE FUTURE

chapter 6 - Dashboard Scenario: Use Case

CASE OVERVIEW

SCENARIO WALKTHROUGH

chapter 7 - Getting Ready for the Implementation

PEOPLE-RELATED ITEMS

TECHNICAL ITEMS

PART 1 - SUMMARY AND READINESS CHECKLIST

PART 2 - CREATING THE RIGHT BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE ARCHITECTURE FOR DASHBOARDS

chapter 8 - Why a Good Architecture Is Important

chapter 9 - Data Warehouse Techniques

DATA WAREHOUSE

ODS

OLAP

DOLAP

HOLAP

DATA MARTS

chapter 10 - Data Replication and Delivery

ETL

METADATA AND MDM

SERVICE-ORIENTED ARCHITECTURE

chapter 11 - Query Language and Interactivity

SQL

DRILL UP, DRILL DOWN, DRILL ACROSS, DRILL TO DETAIL

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

chapter 12 - Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence Dashboard Paradigm

REAL-TIME DASHBOARDS

SHORT-RANGE DASHBOARDS

LONG-RANGE DASHBOARDS

USE CASES

chapter 13 - Mobile Business Intelligence

PART 2 - SUMMARY AND READINESS CHECKLIST

PART 3 - DASHBOARD DESIGN

chapter 14 - Design Tips

CREATING A STORYBOARD

STORYBOARD DESIGN PROCESS

chapter 15 - Dashboard Examples

OVERVIEW: DASHBOARD EXAMPLES

STRATEGIC DASHBOARDS

TACTICAL DASHBOARDS

OPERATIONAL DASHBOARDS

PART 3 - SUMMARY AND READINESS CHECKLIST

PART 4 - MANAGING A DASHBOARD PROJECT

chapter 16 - Planning the Project

PROJECT PHASES

PROJECT PLANNING: KEY STEPS

chapter 17 - Engaging the Users

BUILDING USER SUPPORT AND INTEREST

PROJECT KICK-OFF

chapter 18 - Project Tips

TEN PROJECT TIPS

TEAMING

INITIATION

DELIVERY

CLOSURE

chapter 19 - Training and Deployment

KEY TASKS

TEMPLATES

DASHBOARDS DEPLOYMENT

KEY TASKS

DEPLOYMENT SIGN-OFF

PART 4 - SUMMARY AND READINESS CHECKLIST

APPENDICES

appendix A - Software Selection Tips

appendix B - Installation

appendix C - Hardware Recommendations

appendix D - Security Authentication Techniques

appendix E - Metrics and Key Performance Indicator Examples

About the Authors

Index

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax [phone], or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, 201-748-6011, fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Rasmussen, Nils, 1964-

Business dashboards : a visual catalog for design and deployment / Nils H. Rasmussen, Claire Y. Chen, Manish Bansal.

p. cm.

Includes index.

eISBN : 978-0-470-46069-6

1. Dashboards (Management information systems) I. Chen, Claire Y., 1965- II. Bansal, Manish, 1974- III. Title.

HD30.213.R.4’038011—dc22

2008042936

Preface

We now live in an information society, and more than ever managers are inundated with data. For managers to make the best possible decisions in the shortest amount of time, it is essential to turn data into structured information and then present this information to them in a format that is easy to read and that supports analysis. In recent years, software vendors have embraced this need, and now numerous solutions, commonly referred to as dashboards, have emerged on the market.

An effective deployment of dashboards within an organization can dramatically reduce the need for financial and operational reports. It will also support better decision making and ultimately help improve performance. Mid-sized and large companies typically have hundreds of different reports coming out of their accounting systems and their operational databases, and creating and maintaining such reports comes at a significant cost. In addition, because the consumers of the reports typically do not have the skills or the access right to the reporting tools used to create or modify report templates, they often end up exporting them to Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to make adjustments and to add graphics and formatting, among other things. This further adds to the cost and the pain involved in keeping reports up to date and validated.

Because most dashboard tools are highly graphical, dynamic, and easy to use, with simple training users across an organization can be empowered to monitor and analyze the information relevant to their areas of responsibility and to make informed decisions. Few dashboards survive in the long run unless they are based on the proper back-end infrastructure, such as a data warehouse and Online Analytical Cubes (OLAP) to keep the data up-to-date and correct. Because data architecture is so important for the long-term success of dashboards, it is covered in detail in this book.

Companies, educational institutions, and government organizations alike are starting to discover the power of dashboards to drive better performance, and this book discusses all the various activities and technologies you should know about before, during, and after a dashboard implementation. In particular, a deep focus is placed on real-life dashboard examples so that you quickly can find relevant ideas for your own project and help your own organization benefit from this powerful technology.

Book Summary

This book consists of four parts and appendices:

• Part 1: Introduction to Dashboards

• Part 2: Creating the Right Business Intelligence Architecture for Dashboards

• Part 3: Dashboard Design

• Part 4: Managing a Dashboard Project

• Appendices

Part 1, Introduction to Dashboards, introduces you to the world of dashboards. The discussion starts out by defining what most people expect a business dashboard to be and then covers the quickly rising popularity of this technology. There are multiple categories of dashboards, and each one is covered in brief. Also covered are the key activities you should be prepared to handle in order to get your organization ready for dashboard deployment. Finally, the last chapter in Part One takes you through the process of creating your key performance indicators (KPIs).

Part 2, Creating the Right Business Intelligence Architecture for Dashboards, takes a deep dive into the architecture needed to support long-lasting, high-impact dashboards. It explains why a good architecture is almost always essential to support business intelligence tools. This passage contains chapters covering both real-time and data warehouse-based dashboards. Part 2 then evolves into a description of the various technical deployment options. Finally, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and their relationship to data warehousing, performance, and dashboard deployments are discussed.

Part 3, Dashboard Design, provides a step-by-step process for dashboard design and contains a number of layout tips. Readers will also find a large number of real-life dashboards that offers ideas and concepts to support their own projects. Each dashboard has been categorized to make it easy to find; there is also a standard set of descriptors for each item to enable ranking and sorting to pick the ones that will be used as blueprints in a real-life implementation. Various examples of strategic, tactical, and operational dashboards are covered.

Part 4, Managing a Dashboard Project, goes into detail as to how an implementation project can be organized. Chapters discuss user motivation, project planning, and kick-off meetings and provide tips to keep a project on track. Examples of various project management tools are also provided.

At the end of the book, you will find five appendices. These cover software selection tips, installation, hardware recommendations, and security. The final appendix is perhaps the most important one, because it provides more than 1,000 examples of metrics and key performance indicators. These are organized by industry and major functional roles.

PART 1

INTRODUCTION TO DASHBOARDS

The inspiration for this book stemmed from the surge in demand from companies and government organizations for dashboards that will empower their employees to optimize performance management. Our goal is to provide practical and high value-added content based on three underlying principles:

1. The power of process. It is much easier for a project team to go through an implementation when there is a structured process in place. Everywhere possible in this book, we provide step-by-step tools that can be used in a real-world implementation.

2. The power of examples. This book provides a large number of dashboard examples in order to give the project team and other managers as many ideas as possible for their own dashboard projects.

3. The critical essence of good data architecture. The authors propose that organizations need to deploy a solid and carefully planned data architecture to support sustainable and successful dashboards.

During customer engagements, we have experienced time and again that what can start out as a small project to implement a dashboard for one department within a company often causes a snowball effect and “I want a dashboard too” attitudes when other departments see the completed dashboard in action. Of course that means that along the way we proved to the information technology (IT) group that we could extract data from various source databases, and we proved to the end users that we could transform that data into useful metrics and present it in a user-friendly and attractive dashboard. Because both the data architecture and the dashboard’s content and functionality are critical success factors to any implementation project, we cover each in detail in this book.

How should you read this book? If you are relatively new to the concept of dashboards and you do not have data extracted from source systems and ready to be used, we suggest you read this book from cover to cover. We have organized it so that it first informs you, then it provides real-world examples to give you ideas, and finally it guides you through the implementation project. If you already have a complete idea of the architecture, the desired dashboard(s) or how to run your project, then we suggest you go directly to the applicable parts of the book.

Exhibit P1.1 highlights the recommended workflow of a dashboard project along with related tools and advice found in this book.

EXHIBIT P1.1 Dashboard Implementation Process

chapter 1

Dashboard Definition

If you drive a car or fly an aircraft, vital information about speed, oil pressure, temperature, and so on is available to you through the dashboard in front of you. Gauges, red and green lights, and odometers are strategically positioned so that with a quick glance, without losing focus on where you are going, you know if everything is okay (or not) and can make decisions accordingly.

Just as drivers and pilots rely on their dashboards to do their jobs, managers today are increasingly turning to business dashboards to help them run their organizations. The ideas and benefits are very much the same as the example with the driver: Give managers a dashboard that on one well-designed screen shows the key information they need to monitor the items they are responsible for, and then they can quickly discover problems and take action to help improve the performance of their organizations.