Dashboards

=Dashboards= Thursday, April 17

**Topic overview:**
Dashboard technology was originally designed to give executives a quick snapshot of their business' performance. As dashboard technology has become less expensive and more widely available the technology has spread beyond the executive suite to many different corners of the enterprise.

Specific topics that we will cover include:
 * Understanding the role of dashboards in a BI program
 * Overview of the different elements required to make effective dashboards
 * Operational, tactical, and strategic dashboards
 * Selecting effective Key Performance Indicators (KPI's)
 * Basics of dashboard design

**Preparation for class:**
Prior to class, please complete the following readings:
 * "What are performance dashboards?", Wayne Eckerson, http://www.bpmpartners.com/documents/Chapter1Excerpt.pdf
 * "Ten characteristics of a good KPI", Wayne Eckerson, http://www.tdwi.org/publications/display.aspx?ID=7114
 * Businessweek article on dashboards (2/13/06 issue): http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_07/b3971083.htm

Slides:

In-class exercise:


 * Supplementary resources:**
 * Wayne Eckerson has written an excellent book on Performance Dashboards. If you are interested in the topic, I encourage you to read it, especially chapters 1, 2, 6 - 9, 11, and 12. The required readings touch on some of the key points from the book.
 * [Eck06] Eckerson, Wayne, Performance Dashboards, Wiley, 2006, ISBN: 0-471-72417-3

An article on designing performance dashboards: Designing Executive Dashboards http://www.brightpointinc.com/Articles.asp?File=Designing%20Executive%20Dashboards%20-%20Part%201.htm

submitted by Arlette Toledo

If you guys ever need to use an open source tool to create reports and dashboards that works with any database. I recommend one called 'BIRT' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIRT_Project). For those of you that are technical, it can be installed and used from within the Eclipse IDE and it works pretty much the same way as the SQL Server development app that we used in class.

I have used it in the past. It is free, easy to install and use, and comparable to any comercially available tool.

[submitted by Oscar Casado] ---