It’s a rare presentation on project management when I don’t hear a request or interest in project management dashboards.  ”We need to see what is going on in all the projects in real time,” is the common statement made.  Providing those types of dashboard controls from a technology perspective are a relatively simple matter.  The hard part is…why do you want them in the first place?

Let’s think of an analog to the PM dashboard…the car dashboard.  Think about the dashboard in a car.  At it’s most basic it tells you how fast you’re going, how much, fuel you have left, and if something has gone wrong it flashes little “idiot lights” at you as a warning.  Notice I never said the dashboard ever makes any decisions for you.  It’s up to you as the driver to interpret what the dashboard is telling you and then make the necessary changes and corrections to continue safely.  Dashboards in cars have become more complex over the years, adding computerized displays and in some cases GPS navigation.  But no matter how complex or smart the dashboard is, it still doesn’t have the ability to turn the car right, left, or stop.

When you evaluate the dashboards in a project management solution the same rules apply.  The dashboard can tell you how fast you’re going (schedule), how much fuel you have left (budget), or if something has gone wrong (milestones).  What it can’t do is decide how you are to handle the information it’s sharing.  This is where I caution people about dashboards.  I can hear it in their voices when they start to think about “dashboard automation.”  They get this tone in their voice that if they could only have the perfect dashboard then nothing could ever go wrong with their projects and there would never be any surprises.  It’s just not the case.

Every measurement and piece of information provided by a dashboard must be actionable to have value.  Dashboards that show information because it would be nice to know are a waste of time and effort.  It sounds blunt but think about it.  There is a reason the speedometer in your car is the largest display on the dash.  You can’t afford to have the vital information it provides cluttered with other non-necessary facts.  Think carefully when you decide you want to have “dashboards” to manage your projects.  If you can’t say within one sentence what you are going to do with a piece of information on the dash to better the project then that information has no reason being there.

Dashboards are all about providing critical information for immediate action.  If not, they’d be called “report boards.”  Make sure your dashboards are helping your project managers drive their projects successfully and keep the unnecessary information out of the way.