Operations & Systems
You should know how today is going before today is over
A report tells you how the month went. A dashboard tells you how today is going, while there is still time to act. This session is about building one that fits a small business: a whiteboard, a shared sheet or a screen on the wall, with a few measures that matter and a clear line for when somebody must step in.
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Dashboards fail when they are decoration.
Many dashboards look impressive and change nothing. They show total sales to date, a colourful chart of last year, and figures nobody updates. Owners stop looking, and the screen becomes wallpaper.
A working dashboard answers a few simple questions every day. What is waiting? What is late? What is about to run out? Who is overloaded? Who needs help? It is built for the people running the work, and each figure comes with a limit that says: now somebody needs to act.
A dashboard does not require software. A whiteboard updated twice a day can work better than a screen nobody maintains.
What the session works through
37 topics across 7 areas. Seven decisions in building a dashboard that gets used.
What Is the Dashboard For?Decide the questions before drawing anything.5
- Which decisions are made daily or several times a week
- Which problems have surprised you in the past, and what would have warned you
- Who looks at it: owner, team lead, whole team
- Where it will live so it is seen without effort
- How often the figures change
Early Warnings and After-the-Fact FiguresKnow which kind each measure is.5
- Early warning: orders waiting, jobs overdue, stock days remaining, enquiries not answered
- After the fact: sales last month, complaints last quarter
- Prefer early warnings for a daily dashboard
- Keep after-the-fact figures for the report
- Ask of each measure: does this tell me something while I can still act?
Reporting and dashboards work together. The dashboard keeps the day on track, and the report reviews the period.
Picking Five to Eight MeasuresMore than eight and nobody reads it.7
- Work waiting to start, and the oldest item's age
- Work in progress and work due today
- Stock cover for the three items that stop everything if missing
- Customer messages or calls not yet answered
- Complaints or returns open
- Cash received today against what was expected, where relevant
- A people or capacity measure: who is absent, who is overloaded
Setting a Limit for EachA number without a limit is trivia.5
For illustration only, with made-up numbers: if unanswered customer messages usually number three or four by evening, you might call five amber and ten red, and write who clears them.
- Green: normal, no action
- Amber: watch, somebody checks within the day
- Red: act now, and this is who acts
- Limits set from your own experience, not borrowed from elsewhere
- Reviewed after a month, because the first guess is usually off
A Whiteboard, a Sheet or a ScreenStart with the cheapest option that works.5
- A whiteboard with columns for waiting, doing and done
- A shared spreadsheet that the team updates and everyone can see
- Simple charts only where a trend matters
- A screen in the work area only if somebody owns updating it
- Printed copies for the owner who is out of the office
Owners and Update RhythmEvery figure needs a person and a time.5
- Who updates each measure
- At what time of day
- Where the raw figure comes from
- Who covers when that person is away
- What happens if a figure is missing: it should be visible, not hidden
Keeping It Honest and AliveA dashboard that is always green is not working.5
- Looking at a red as information, not blame
- A five-minute stand-up around it, if the team is co-located
- Retiring measures nobody acts on
- Adding one only when a surprise shows what was missing
- Reviewing the whole dashboard every quarter
Bring to the session
- A list of the last three surprises: late orders, stock-outs, angry customers
- A note of what you check first each morning
- A sense of what normal looks like for your business
- Your team structure and who works where
- A phone to photograph your whiteboard draft
What the session does not do
- Recommend dashboard software or sell it
- Set limits for you: those come from your own experience
- Build a live system during the session
- Promise that a dashboard will prevent problems
How the session runs
A practitioner starts with a short example of a whiteboard dashboard for a made-up small business and explains how each limit was chosen. Participants then draw their own, with five to eight measures, green, amber and red limits, and an owner for each. In pairs, they test each other's draft with a few made-up scenarios to see whether it would have warned them in time.
What your students leave with
- A list of five to eight measures that show the state of the work now
- A limit for each measure, and what happens when it is crossed
- A draft dashboard on a whiteboard, paper or spreadsheet
- A named owner and an update time for every measure
- The difference between early-warning measures and measures that report after the fact
- A plan for keeping it current without it becoming another chore
Scheduled sessions
Nothing scheduled yet
Sessions are arranged with a college once a date is agreed. Ask us and we will find the right person for it.
A student rather than a college? See what is coming up, or ask your placement team to host this.
Know how the day is going while you can still change it.
Tell us who your students are and what stage they are at. Sessions are free for participants.