Are dashboards dead? Assessing their challenges & advantages to determine their future in businesses

Dashboards have been quite a topic of contention in certain circles with the recent recirculation of Taylor Brownlow’s essay ”Are Dashboards Dead?”. While I’m of the opinion that no, dashboards are not dead, they have been undeniably overused and often misunderstood, with a disconnect between a dashboard’s actual function versus our perceived function of them. 

Many of us have experienced dashboard fatigue, and rightfully so. As businesses, how many dashboards have we commissioned that were never fully utilised, if used at all? The answer is too many. The reason for low engagement isn’t the fault of the humble dashboard, but rather that a dashboard was never the appropriate solution for the end user, or its design wasn’t tailored enough to the business use case.  

When faced with a business problem requiring data insights, we often jump straight to dashboard creation. However, there are many other solutions that can be tailored to deliver data insights, such as concise reports and static presentations. With an increased understanding of where dashboards fail, the conversation has shifted to questioning their relevance altogether.  

So, what place do dashboards still have in businesses, and how can we better understand where they excel to drive improved outcomes? 

What are the defining terms for dashboards?

A dashboard is a tool that provides an interactive, visual summary of data. Its resulting insights are actionable, with an understanding that can be derived from the data to inform decision-making. While developments in AI make it possible for these insights to be generated for you, human interpretation remains crucial for ensuring they are contextually relevant and actionable. Finally, a dashboard report is a structured, static document or presentation that communicates specific findings or answers to defined business questions.

What potential challenges may arise with dashboards?

There are many instances where dashboards may be less effective or complicate matters for businesses, and other methods provide a better solution. Instances may include: 

• When the user needs a concise answer to a question:
  Dashboards require interaction and exploration, which can be time-consuming. If a stakeholder needs a straightforward answer, a tailored report is more efficient.  

• For business specific, niche questions:
  Not every level of enquiry warrants the resource-intensive creation of a dashboard. For narrow, targeted questions, simpler reporting methods suffice. 

• One-time insights:
  Dashboards are overkill for static data projects, such as measuring the success of a single transformation. In these cases, producing a well-crafted report or presentation is more resource-efficient. 

• If the data is exported for analysis:
  If users regularly export dashboard data to manipulate it elsewhere, it’s a sign that the dashboard doesn’t meet their needs or wasn’t necessary to begin with. 

When might dashboards be the right solution?

• Company-wide reporting platforms:
  Dashboards provide a unified view of performance across teams, offering consistent delivery of insights to aiding faster decision making, customisable filters for views specific to each business unit, efficiency in distributing insights without the need for manual reporting and increased data accessibility through data visualisation. 

• Regular cadence reporting:
  For tracking ongoing metrics such as daily sales, customer trends or campaign performance, and measuring progress against targets, dashboards provide updated insights without the wait. 

• Exploratory analysis:
  When users want to discover patterns, relationships or unknown trends within the data, dashboards allow for interactive interrogation. These tools are especially valuable for data-savvy end users, enabling self-service exploration without requiring an analyst’s intervention. 

• Monitoring ongoing initiatives:
  Dashboards are excellent for tracking live projects or recurring business processes, offering real-time visibility into performance. 

With the above in mind, we’re moving to a more informed approach where dashboards are no longer a tiresome, default solution, but a carefully considered tool. The future isn’t about abandoning dashboards, but about being intentional and strategic in their creation and deployment. The key is facilitating dashboard creation in a way that adds tangible value and is thoughtfully configured to provide meaningful, actionable insights that empower decision making. 

How CACI can help

At CACI, we work with you to deliver the best solutions for your analysis needs. Our extensive experience in successfully implementing dashboards across diverse industries highlights several key scenarios where dashboards have proven to be highly effective.  

Whether it’s creating a bespoke, one-off report or developing a suite of comprehensive, customisable dashboards, contact us to find out more about how our user centric approach and industry expertise can help you gain meaningful analytics that will drive strategic business outcomes.