· 3 min · DM&M Consulting & Solutions
A new dashboard often arrives to applause and changes nothing the following week. The charts were never aimed at a choice someone was prepared to make. The meeting had a visual. It did not have a decision.
Before we open a file we ask three things. What decision is waiting? Who will make it? What evidence would be enough to move? Those answers choose the fields that matter and the analyses that would only decorate the slide.
A useful result is small on purpose. One comparison, one trend, or one exception that changes the plan. When every number is highlighted, none of them is. We prefer a short note a leader will use over a workbook that is opened once.
The tool can wait. Clear decisions and adequate data usually need a simple chart. An unclear decision, moved onto a better platform, becomes a more expensive version of the same uncertainty.