strategy

Are Dashboards dead?… #Analytics

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Let’s think through:

Are Dashboards Dead?

With lot of vendors pushing for democratizing analytics (a.k.a self-service), it may seem that the dashboards would soon be dead!

You need two things to make a org data driven. 1) Push 2) Pull.

“Pull”

…is where most of the analytics vendors are focused right more — it’s set of technologies that the business users want. The big idea here is to enable business users to pull whatever data they want, whenever they want without having to wait for Analytics/IT. Note that the business users are doing the heavy-lifting in analysis (of course you need a data platform to enable this but still it’s the business users using the platform and doing their analysis)

“Push”

…is where there are dashboards which are built by central IT/Analytics and are ready to be consumed by the business users. This should be a governed environment where a lot of effort has been invested by Analytics/IT to make that the metrics are standardized & accurate. This is key to making this work — if the metrics on the dashboard are accurate and metrics are standardized then business users would trust these dashboards more than the self-service dashboards. This would also be their one-place to go view all key performance indicators for their org/department and then if they see something “interesting” (or better yet — get an alert!) then they can dive into the self-service environment and do their thing. You see, “Push” strategy is really great at getting the data to all business users and then “pushing” them to do use the self-service analytics platform.

[BTW: Putting bunch of reports in a grid layout is not what I am talking about here. I am limiting my definition of dashboard which have KPI’s and directs users to where they should be focusing on]

(Again, two things to do here to make sure the push strategy succeeds. 1) Having standardized & accurate data = earn trust! 2) Having KPI’s that align with the strategic plan of the org/dept)

Dashboards Push Pull Analytics Strategy

So now having understood what these strategies are let’s take a minute to put them to use to answer the question:

Are Dashboards Dead Yet?

So let’s imagine a scenario where a org does not a Push Strategy. They have implemented a self-service platform and are focused on evolving that. Now there are two problems that they will run into:

  1. For “casual” users — How do they get them the training they need? OR support that they need?
  2. For “power” users — Once they start creating their own calculated metrics then how do they make sure that they are standardized across what other power users are doing? (also, how do they validate if what they are analyzing is accurate?)

You see both of those problems can be partially (if not completely) solved by having Dashboards:

  1. Dashboards are a great way for casual users to look at their KPI and then they can figure out where they would focus on
  2. Also, Dashboards are a great way to provide standardized & accurate metrics so everyone could trust the number that they are looking at
  3. Note that it shouldn’t require you to start from zero! You should be using the data modeling layer built for your self service platform for the dashboards as well

…And that’s why I think Dashboards are not dead yet.

PS: You might see some vendors that are pushing for a different approach where the platform would auto-magically go through the data and get you the “insights” — I think it’s a great approach. Usually they would target dashboards but I would argue that they compete more with “Pull” strategies rather than “Push” because now the business user won’t have to explore so many different variables but the platform could do that heavy-lifting and get them quick insights.

An amazing framework to solve business problems:

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There are two type of things I learned in Graduate school:

1. Useful

2. Not Useful! (useless)

This post is NOT about discussing useless learning’s! So let me share one of most useful things that I learned in my two years at a School of management: How to solve business problems? Sounds cliched but that was, I think, one of the most important skills I picked up there. In particular, I learned about Frameworks used to solve business problems, one of them was called “MECE” which is what I want to share with you in this post.

(Side-note: Most folks learn this at some strategy consulting firm like McKinsey but unlike them, I learned about it in school)

Before we begin, I want to share about why you should care and then I’ll talk about what is it.

Why MECE?

No matter which team you work for, you are solving problems. You wouldn’t have a job if you’re not doing that — so why not get better at it?

If you want to find a root cause of a business problem (& find the solution faster!) then you need to break it down…to break it down, you need to structure it. Now, they are many ways (or Frameworks) to structure a problem — MECE is one of the most effective frameworks out there. So lets learn about that:

(side-note: MECE framework may sound like a simple idea BUT it’s NOT easy to apply!)

What is MECE?

It’s an acronym and it stands for “Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive” which means that when you break a problem into sub-items then they should be:

1. Not overlap with each other (mutually exclusive)

2.  If you add up all sub-items then it should represent all possible solutions (collectively exhaustive)

Let’s take an example:

Say that you are asked to analyze “why is Profitability declining?”

Here’s a non-MECE way:

  • Find Top 10% profitable products [does NOT pass the collectively exhaustive test]
  • Out of them find products that are have declining profits
  • Try to find reasons why those products would have declining profits

Here’s a MECE way:

Visual for MECE principle

  • Break it down to Revenue & Cost
  • let’s start with cost, let’s say it’s constant = revenue must be going down for declining profits
  • further break down revenue into 1) Revenue from all non-usa locations 2) USA locations (Note the use of MECE principle here)
  • let’s say that revenue for non-usa locations is increasing, then it must be USA locations that’s the problem! (Note how effectively are able to narrow down and find the root cause faster!)
  • Let’s further break down to product categories for USA locations…Continue breaking down the sub-items in a MECE way till you find the root cause

I hope that gives you a good overview of MECE principle.

Conclusion:

MECE is one of the few effective frameworks that you can use to solve a business problem. If you want to get better at structuring your ideas (to solve business problems), consider practicing MECE as there are ample resources available online that would help you master this!