Performance Dashboards: Measuring, Monitoring, and Managing Your Business [Hardcover]

For purposes of discussion, pretend that your organization is a vehicle within which you and your associates travel en route to a series of destinations; for example, various stages of progressively improved operational efficiency and progressively increased profitability. One key question arises: How well is your vehicle performing?

The three "dashboards" (i.e. operational, tactical, and strategic) that Wayne Eckerson offers in this volume can help to answer that question. "The monitoring application conveys critical information at a glance using timely and relevant data, usually with graphical elements; the analysis application lets users analyze and explore performance data across multiple dimensions and at different levels of detail to get at the root cause of problems and issues; the management application fosters communication among executives, managers, and staff and gives executives continuous feedback across a range of critical activities, enabling them to `steer' their organizations in the right direction."

The ultimate success of the cohesive, comprehensive, and cost-effective system which Eckerson discusses in this book depends on several factors: sufficient leadership and resources at all levels of implementation, correct and consistent application of the right metrics, a compelling graphical user interface, and contingency planning which ensures user adoption while driving the organizational changes.

I especially appreciate Eckerson's provision of three mini case studies that illustrate how -- in real-world situations - the three performance "dashboards" can achieve the desired objectives. Specifically, those that are operational (Quicken Loans, Inc., pages 127-141), those which are tactical (International Truck and Engine Corp., pages 143-158), and those which are strategic (Hewlett Packard Co., pages 159-177). I also appreciate the material provided in Part Three (Critical Success Factors: Tips from the Trenches) as Eckerson correlates various multilayered applications built on business intelligence and data integration infrastructure that enables any organization (regardless of size or nature) to measure, monitor, and manage business performance more effectively.

All executives recognize the importance of accurate and consistent measurement of what really matters. Obviously, the "what" varies (sometimes significantly) from one organization to another. In my opinion, the three performance "dashboards" that Eckerson recommends can be of substantial benefit, whatever the given "what" may be but if - and only if - the aforementioned success factors are present. To repeat, they are: sufficient leadership and resources at all levels of implementation, correct and consistent application of the right metrics, a compelling graphical user interface, and contingency planning which ensures user adoption while driving the organizational changes.

This book is by no means an "easy read" but it will generously reward those who absorb and digest its material with appropriate care. Then what? He fully understands how difficult it is to ensure adoption by others, and, to manage performance effectively throughout the given enterprise. In the final chapter, Eckerson notes that performance dashboards can easily backfire and cause performance to decline or stall instead of climb. He then identifies what he characterizes as eight cardinal sins " that can turn a performance dashboard into a performance quagmire." How to avoid them? Eckerson offers nine strategies to ensure adoption and eight strategies to manage performance.

I highly recommend this brilliant book as well as Dean Spitzer's Transforming Performance Measurement. Both are eminently worthy of thoughtful and rigorous consideration. However, that said, I also offer a caveat expressed by Peter Drucker in 1963: "There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all." Invoking again the "vehicle" metaphor introduced in the first paragraph of this brief commentary, I presume to suggest that if you and your companions don't know where you are going, "any road will get you there."

This book provides an easy to read and wholesome foundation on the topic of performance dashboards. The views of the author and contributors are clearly based on practical experiences.

The material offers some excellent evangelistic and business case fodder, if that's where one is at. It contains plenty of practical advice to help organisations embark on new projects too.

This book is reasonably comprehensive and practical yet it makes the topic feel bigger and slightly more complex than it necessarily needs to be.

It's easy to see that well implemented dashboards provide a business intelligence framework that can expand with the business too. The material touches upon how effective dashboards have been implemented, which, when considered in fairness, indicates that the level of sophistication continues to be relatively mild given the sum of man years invested in the topic to date.

Performance Dashboards: Measuring, Monitoring, and Managing your Business by Wayne Eckerson is quite possibly my favorite business intelligence book. I've recommended the first edition of Performance Dashboards to my clients, regardless of whether they were business users or IT professionals. For the second edition, I had two primary questions. First, would it still be the first book I'd recommend? And second, should owners of the first edition purchase the second edition? I'm happy to say that the answer to both questions is "yes". Although the book covers the same themes as its predecessor, the book's contents have been reorganized and over 50% of the material is new.

If you're looking for your first book on business intelligence, dashboards and performance management, this is it. And if you own the first edition, you'll appreciate the new chapters, case studies, and new organization of the material. I've seen many dashboard projects fail because either the business sponsors, the IT department, or sometimes both think that they can continue business as usual. There is a third way and Performance Dashboards provides valuable insights that can help you find it.