In today’s business world, managers often get caught up in the vast number of different tools that can be used to measure progress and productivity at their company. For example, the office’s digital dashboard can measure internal productivity and how certain products are being made as well as how well staff members are working together as a team, according to an article from Inc.com.
In today’s modern business world, supervisors and executives can choose from a never-ending list of tools to manage operations. Due to this, it becomes harder for managers to determine which tools and type of digital dashboard works well and which doesn’t work in terms of managing operations and measuring productivity.
The best factors that can help you as a manager determine what type of tools work well for your company is to implement a digital dashboard that aligns well with visual management processes. Below we outline exactly how digital dashboards can relate to visual management at your company.
How a Digital Dashboard Benefits Visual Management Practices
Managers tend to favor the concept of digital dashboards because they provide single snapshots of operational and marketing metrics as well as key performance metrics (KPIs) in a visual way, according to an article written by Joel Shapiro for the Harvard Business Review. In terms of a visual management practice, the digital dashboard shows what is working and what isn’t working at a company, which means managers won’t need to wait for weekly or monthly reports to make changes within their departments.
A visual representation of data through a dashboard can help managers gain greater transparency from their workforce and potentially make quick adjustments to improve productivity and other important metrics.
Data analytics involves several key factors such as capturing and describing current or past phenomena, predicting future outcomes based on business data, and developing a course of action. With the use of digital dashboards and visual management practices, the first step of data analytics, related to capturing current or past phenomena, can be achieved.
Visual management is a great way to streamline management practices that focus on results, according to the website for-managers.com. Visual management involves having graphs, data, and other information available to supervisors as well as all relevant employees. This data is usually quick and easy to view and interpret in order to make improvements in terms of productivity and other metrics. Therefore, digital dashboards can work perfectly with the goals of visual management.
There are several requirements that must be implemented when adopting a digital dashboard as well as using visual management practices such as defining the indicators and metrics to analyze along with creating a team that will continually collect the relevant information. In addition, the leader of a project will need to be properly trained and prepared to use digital dashboards and other tools in order to teach other employees how to implement these tools in their day-to-day tasks.
Sharing data visually between team members and across departments can become a very useful practice in terms of improving productivity, efficiency, and profit. Below is a detailed description outlining why sharing data visually across teams is an important and beneficial practice.
How Sharing Data Visually Benefits Business Decision-Making and Team Performance
Business decisions have major implications for employees, vendors, and customers and need to be made wisely using the right resources and data. As such, managers will need to have access to the right data and the right tools to make the best decisions. Sharing data visually and maximizing big data can play a major role in business decision-making at any company.
In addition, business intelligence provides companies and managers with the resources they need to make informed decisions. Big data largely stimulates business intelligence, which means that sharing data visually among team members and supervisors should greatly benefit decision-making in the business world.
In addition, sharing data visually can benefit the area of people analytics, which is vital for improving team performance within a company. Utilizing people analytics can be beneficial for improving performance in terms of hiring decisions. Sharing data visually for advanced people analytics can also help identify employees who are drivers of high performance when hiring for open positions.
In addition, big data analytics and sharing data visually across departments can properly help measure team performance. Furthermore, people analytics measures team performance by focusing on key performance indicators (KPIs). Below, we describe how a digital dashboard can be used to show specific KPIs.
The Type of KPIs a Digital Dashboard Shows
There are a large number of different KPIs that digital dashboards can be used to measure in order to reach the goals that a business owner or manager has developed. For instance, a business that is looking to increase sales by 20 percent can use dashboards to measure KPIs such as conversion rates, website traffic, and daily sales.
On the other hand, if a business manager wants to reduce customer service phone calls by 30 percent, it may be necessary to measure KPIs such as the factors that triggered customer service calls, technician performance returns, and customer satisfaction ratings.
Digital dashboards can be used to analyze these type of KPIs, which can help business managers monitor and act on specific metrics to reach their desired results. In order to obtain the favored results and for dashboards to make the most out of your KPIs, a business manager will need to customize a set of KPIs to meet their needs.
Since defining KPIs can be rather complex, there are a variety of questions that managers should answer to define the specific results they’re searching for. These questions include:
- What are the goals you as the manager are looking to meet?
- Who are the team members that will be using the digital dashboard?
- What tasks are necessary for the job?
- What is the team’s relationship with the data?
- What are the metrics that best predict success for your company?
By determining the answers to these questions, you as the manager will be able to develop the right KPIs for your dashboard to measure. This will help you better monitor relevant measurements to determine progress made toward business goals as well as make effective business decisions and become more profitable.
The last part of the process toward utilizing data to meet developed goals and reach desired results is to adopt the right tools to help you build a digital dashboard. Keep reading to learn all about the right tools necessary to create a digital dashboard.
Best Tools to Create a Digital Dashboard
Including the right tools and infrastructure within a company can help managers streamline business operations and improve customer relations as well as productivity, according to Tech Radar. Some of the best tools to create digital dashboards include:
1. Sisense
The software program Sisense can help your company identify data sources and include them in all business processes. A series of interactive dashboards are built into the system to track metrics and allow you to gain useful insights for obtaining the best results. Additionally, this program is flexible and customizable to meet your needs.
2. Adaptive Discovery
The product Adaptive Discovery helps provide a manager with several dashboards to track all the data that a company creates. This program includes several visualization techniques for viewing data and can accurately analyze the company forecast and budget.
3. Visme
The program Visme can actually help you turn your business data into infographics, charts, presentations, and even videos. In addition, the graphics can become more interactive with the integration of links and buttons that can be posted online. This type of visual presentation can be integrated into dashboards for easy-to-view metrics to determine the results of company protocols.
4. Runrun.it
The project management software Runrun.it includes both time tracking technology and a digital dashboard where users can view relevant metrics such as the time spent on revising a document or file. The dashboard also provides information on delayed tasks and how much time is spent on each project. All of the time-centered data can help managers make better decisions in real-time.
How the Runrun.it Dashboard Benefits Business Managers
The Runrun.it project management software program includes time tracking tools that can provide business managers with the right data to determine whether employees are meeting their deadlines and meeting the goals of a company. This project management software can automatically measure the time it takes users to complete their tasks and projects.
In addition, this project management software helps quantify management data while users can view their metrics using the digital dashboard. Business managers can use this dashboard to customize the specific metrics and KPIs they are seeking. The dashboard stores and records relevant management data regarding business needs.
If you’re interested in finding out whether the Runrun.it digital dashboard is the right choice for your company, click here for a free, 14-day trial.
