Establish High-Value IT Performance Dashboards and Metrics
Spend less time struggling with visuals and more time communicating about what matters to your executives.
While most CIOs understand the importance of using metrics to measure IT’s accomplishments, needs, and progress, when it comes to creating dashboards to communicate these metrics, they:
- Concentrate on the data instead of the audience.
- Display information specific to IT activities instead of showing how IT addresses business goals and problems.
- Use overly complicated, out of context graphs that crowd the dashboard and confuse the viewer.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
While most CIOs understand the importance of using metrics to measure IT’s accomplishments, needs, and progress, when it comes to creating dashboards to communicate these metrics, they:
- Concentrate on the data instead of the audience.
- Display information specific to IT activities instead of showing how IT addresses business goals and problems.
- Use overly complicated, out of context graphs that crowd the dashboard and confuse the viewer.
Impact and Result
Use Info-Tech’s ready-made dashboards for executives to ensure you:
- Speak to the right audience
- About the right things
- In the right quantity
- Using the right measures
- At the right time.
Member Testimonials
After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.
8.7/10
Overall Impact
$20,549
Average $ Saved
10
Average Days Saved
Client
Experience
Impact
$ Saved
Days Saved
Pima County Community College District
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
14
Diana was great! I never thought putting together meaningful dashboards could be so painless and valuable!
State of Ohio - Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities
Guided Implementation
7/10
$32,499
5
The tools and templates are very helpful with helping map our dashboard solutions. Sometimes these tools are too cumbersome for building dashboard... Read More
The Lottery Corporation
Guided Implementation
9/10
$8,599
10
I love analyst Diana's wisdom. She always bring me back to what's important - the customer (our Technology customer) and that simplifies the comple... Read More
Workshop: Establish High-Value IT Performance Dashboards and Metrics
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Test Info-tech’s IT Dashboards Against Your Audience’s Needs and Translate Audience Needs Into Metrics
The Purpose
- Introduce the Info-Tech IT Dashboards to give the participants an idea of how they can be used in their organization.
- Understand the importance of starting with the audience and understanding audience needs before thinking about data and metrics.
- Explain how audience needs translate into metrics.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Understanding of where to begin when it comes to considering dashboards and metrics (the audience).
- Identified audience and needs and derived metrics from those identified needs.
Activities
Outputs
Review the info-Tech IT Dashboards and document impressions for your organization.
- Initial impressions of Info-Tech IT Dashboards.
Identify your audience and their attributes.
- Completed Tabs 2 and 3 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.
Identify timeline and deadlines for dashboards.
Identify and prioritize audience needs and desired outcomes.
Associate metrics to each need.
Identify a dashboard for each metric.
Module 2: Inventory Your Data and Assess Data Quality and Readiness
The Purpose
Provide guidance on how to derive metrics and assess data.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Understand the importance of considering how you will measure each metric and get the data.
- Understand that measuring data can be costly and that sometimes you just can’t afford to get the measure or you can’t get the data period because the data isn’t there.
- Understand how to assess data quality and readiness.
Activities
Outputs
Complete a data inventory for each metric on each dashboard: determine how you will measure the metric, the KPI, any observation biases, the location of the data, the type of source, the owner, and the security/compliance requirements.
- Completed Tab 4 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.
Assess data quality for availability, accuracy, and standardization.
Assess data readiness and the frequency of measurement and reporting.
Module 3: Design and Build Your Dashboards
The Purpose
- Guide participants in customizing the Info-Tech IT Dashboards with the data identified in previous steps.
- This step may vary as some participants may not need to alter the Info-Tech IT Dashboards other than to add their own data.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Understanding of how to customize the dashboards to the participants’ organization.
Activities
Outputs
Revisit the Info-Tech IT Dashboards and use the identified metrics to determine what should change in them.
- Assessed Info-Tech IT Dashboards for your audience’s needs.
Build your dashboards by editing the Info-Tech IT Dashboards with your changes as planned in Step 3.1.
- Completed Tab 5 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.
- Finalized dashboards.
Module 4: Deliver Your Dashboard and Plan to Action Metrics
The Purpose
- Guide participants in learning how to create a story around the dashboards.
- Guide participants in planning to action metrics and where to record results.
- Guide participants in how to address results of metrics and feedback from audience about dashboards.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Participants understand how to speak to their dashboards.
- Participants understand how to action metrics results and feedback about dashboards.
Activities
Outputs
Craft your story.
- Completed Tabs 6 and 7 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.
Practice delivering your story.
Plan to action your metrics.
Understand how to record and address your results.
Module 5: Next Steps and Wrap-Up
The Purpose
- Finalize work outstanding from previous steps and answer any questions.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Participants have thought about and documented how to customize the Info-Tech IT Dashboards to use in their organization, and they have everything they need to customize the dashboards with their own metrics and visuals (if necessary).
Activities
Outputs
Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days.
- Completed IT Dashboards tailored to your organization.
Set up review time for workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps.
- Completed IT Dashboard Workbook
Establish High-Value IT Performance Dashboards and Metrics
Spend less time struggling with visuals and more time communicating about what matters to your executives.
Analyst Perspective
A dashboard is a communication tool that helps executives make data-driven decisions
CIOs naturally gravitate toward data and data analysis. This is their strength. They lean into this strength, using data to drive decisions, track performance, and set targets because they know good data drives good decisions.
However, when it comes to interpreting and communicating this complex information to executives who may be less familiar with data, CIOs struggle, often falling back on showing IT activity level data instead of what the executives care about. This results in missed opportunities to tell IT’s unique story, secure funding, reveal important trends, or highlight key opportunities for the organization.
Break through these traditional barriers by using Info-Tech’s ready-made IT dashboards. Spend less time agonizing over visuals and layout and more time concentrating on delivering IT information that moves the organization forward.
Diana MacPherson
Senior Research Analyst, CIO
Info-Tech Research Group
Executive Summary
Your ChallengeWhile most CIOs understand the importance of using metrics to measure IT’s accomplishments, needs, and progress, when it comes to creating dashboards to communicate these metrics, they:
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Common ObstaclesCIOs often experience these challenges because they:
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Info-Tech’s ApproachUse Info-Tech’s ready-made dashboards for executives to ensure you:
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Info-Tech Insight
The purpose of a dashboard is to drive decision making. A well designed dashboard presents relevant, clear, concise insights that help executives make data-driven decisions.
Your challenge
CIOs struggle to select the right metrics and dashboards to communicate IT’s accomplishments, needs, and progress to their executives. CIOs:
- Fail to tailor metrics to their audience, often presenting graphs that are familiar and useful to them, but not their executives. This results in dashboards full of IT activities that executives neither understand nor find valuable.
- Do not consider the timeliness of their metrics, which has the same effect as not tailoring their metrics: the executives do not care about the metrics they are shown.
- Present too many metrics, which not only clutters the board but also dilutes the message the CIO needs to communicate.
- Do not act on the results of their metrics and show progress, which makes metrics meaningless. Why measure something if you won’t act on the results?
The bottom line: CIOs often communicate to the wrong audience, about the wrong things, in the wrong amount, using the wrong metrics, at the wrong time.
In a survey of 500 executives, organizations that struggled with dashboards identified the reasons as:
61% Inadequate context
54% Information overload
— Source: Exasol
CXOs and CIOs agree that IT performance metrics need improvement
When asked which performance indicators should be implemented in your business, CXOs and CIOs both agree that IT needs to improve its metrics across several activity areas: technology performance, cost and salary, and risk.
The Info-Tech IT Dashboards center key metrics around these activities ensuring you align your metrics to the needs of your CXO audience.
Info-Tech CEO/CIO Alignment Survey Benchmark Report n=666
The Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by the top CIO priorities
The top six areas that a CIO needs to prioritize and measure outcomes, no matter your organization or industry, are:
- Managing to a budget: Reducing operational costs and increasing strategic IT spend
- Customer/constituent satisfaction: Directly and indirectly impacting customer experience.
- Risk management: Actively knowing and mitigating threats to the organization.
- Delivering on business objectives: Aligning IT initiatives to the vision of the organization.
- Employee engagement: Creating an IT workforce of engaged and purpose-driven people.
- Business leadership relations: Establishing a network of influential business leaders.
Deliver High-Value IT Dashboards to Your Executives
Info-Tech’s approach
Deliver High-Value Dashboards to Your Executives
Executives recognize the benefits of dashboards:
87% of respondents to an Exasol study agreed that their organization’s leadership team would make more data-driven decisions if insights were presented in a simpler and more understandable way
(Source: Exasol)
The Info-Tech difference:
We created dashboards for you so you don’t have to!
- Eliminate 80% of the dashboard design work by selecting from our ready-made Info-Tech IT Dashboards.
- Use our IT Dashboard Workbook to adjust the dashboards to your audience and organization.
- Follow our blueprint and IT Dashboard Workbook tool to craft, and deliver your dashboard to your CXO team, then action feedback from your audience to continuously improve.
Info-Tech’s methodology for establishing high-value dashboards
1. Test Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards Against Your Audience’s Needs
Phase Steps
- Validate Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards for Your Audience
- Identify and Document Your Audience’s Needs
Phase Outcomes
- Initial impressions of Info-Tech IT Dashboards
- Completed Tabs 2 of the IT Dashboard Workbook
2. Translate Audience Needs into Metrics
Phase Steps
- Review Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards for Your Audience
- Derive Metrics from Audience Needs
- Associate metrics to Dashboards
Phase Outcomes
- Completed IT Tab 3 of IT Dashboard Workbook
3. Ready Your Data for Dashboards
Phase Steps
- Assess Data Inventory
- Assess Data Quality
- Assess Data Readiness
- Assess Data Frequency
Phase Outcomes
- Assessed Info-Tech IT Dashboards for your audience’s needs
- Completed Tab 5 of the IT Dashboard Workbook
- Finalized dashboards
4. Build and Deliver Your Dashboards
Phase Steps
- Design Your Dashboard
- Update Your Dashboards
- Craft Your Story and Deliver Your Dashboards
Phase Outcomes
- Completed IT Tab 5 and 6 of IT Dashboard Workbook and finalized dashboards
5. Plan, Record, and Action Your Metrics
Phase Steps
- Plan How to Record Metrics
- Record and Action Metrics
Phase Outcomes
- Completed IT Dashboards tailored to your organization
- Completed IT Dashboard Workbook
How to Use This Blueprint
Choose the path that works for you
The Info-Tech IT Dashboards address several needs:
- New to dashboards and metrics and not sure where to begin? Let the phases in the blueprint guide you in using Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards to create your own dashboards.
- Already know who your audience is and what you want to show? Augment the Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards framework with your own data and visuals.
- Already have a tool you would like to use? Use the Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards as a design document to customize your tool.
About Info-Tech
Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.
We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.
What Is a Blueprint?
A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.
Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.
Need Extra Help?
Speak With An Analyst
Get the help you need in this 5-phase advisory process. You'll receive 11 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.
Guided Implementation 1: Scoping and testing Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards against audience needs
- Call 1: Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges.
- Call 2: Review Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards against your audience’s needs.
Guided Implementation 2: Audience needs and metrics
- Call 1: Document audience needs.
- Call 2: Translate audience needs into metrics.
Guided Implementation 3: Ready data for dashboards
- Call 1: Assess data inventory and quality.
- Call 2: Assess data readiness and frequency.
Guided Implementation 4: Build and deliver your dashboards
- Call 1: Design dashboards.
- Call 2: Update dashboards.
- Call 3: Craft story and add key insights and calls to action to dashboard.
Guided Implementation 5: Plan, record, and action your metrics
- Call 1: Plan your metrics.
- Call 2: Record and action your metrics.
Contributors
- John Corrado, Head of IT, X4 Pharmaceuticals
- Grant Frost, Chief Information & Security Officer, Niagara Catholic School Board
- Nick Scozzaro, CEO and Co-Founder of MobiStream and ShadowHQ, ShadowHQ
- Joseph Sanders, Managing Director of Technology/Cyber Security Services, Kentucky Housing Corporation
- Jochen Sievert, Director Performance Excellence and IT, Zeon Chemicals
- 4 anonymous contributors
- Info-Tech Contributors:
- Ibrahim Abdel-Kader, Research Analyst
- Donna Bales, Principal Research Director
- Shashi Bellamkonda, Principal Research Director
- John Burwash, Executive Counselor
- Tony Denford, Research Lead
- Jody Gunderman, Senior Executive Advisor
- Tom Hawley, Managing Partner
- Mike Higginbotham, Executive Counselor
- Valence Howden, Principal Research Director
- Dave Kish, Practice Lead
- Carlene McCubbin, Practice Lead
- Jennifer Perrier, Principal Research Director
- Gary Rietz, Executive Counselor
- Steve Schmidt, Senior Managing Partner
- Aaron Shum, Vice President, Security & Privacy
- Ian Tyler-Clarke, Executive Counselor
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Key Metrics for Every CIO
Establish High-Value IT Performance Dashboards and Metrics
