This week, I am discussing some core concepts of Information Technology Enterprise Management Success.  I have written on various topics like this before as part of my IT Management Tools and Productivity series.  

As I said yesterday, though I stray far and wide in my management consultant product usage, I do find myself frequently coming back to one that I learned from FranklinCovey.  Yesterday, I wrote about their concept for goal making that they call Wildly Important Goals or WIGs.  It is part of their The 4 Disciplines of Execution™ organizational consulting program. 

Their second discipline in this series is to make compelling scoreboards to inform the workforce on how you are doing.  The keys to this idea are that people do best when:

  • They know what sport they are playing
  • They know the score
  • The can see the goal posts
  • They know that they are playing for keeps
  • They know there is an audience watching them

image

SearchCIO,com describes them, like this:

In information technology, a dashboard is a user interface that, somewhat resembling an automobile’s dashboard, organizes and presents information in a way that is easy to read. However, a computer dashboard is more likely to be interactive than an automobile dashboard (unless it is also computer-based). To some extent, most graphical user interfaces (GUIs) resemble a dashboard. However, some product developers consciously employ this metaphor (and sometimes the term) so that the user instantly recognizes the similarity.

In the Information Technology world, the best examples of this type of score board making that I have ever seen have been compelling IT Strategic Dashboards.  The image above is a good example of one.  There are many ways to produce them, but the best ones share these features:

  • They are online
  • There use live data streams
  • They are available to everyone by portal or share drive
  • They are no more than one screen
  • They are visual
  • They permit click and drill down on the data behind the graphs/pictograph as well as the goal in play

For more reading and examples of this topic I recommend:

When you pick a good WIG, then you can align that goal to every single member of your team or organization.  When you get hundreds of people aligned and producing towards a goal that actually is critical to your success, then amazing things happen! It can be one of the most exciting productivity successes to see for a management type.

My thought today is What type of IT Dahsboard does your organization use?  I am especially interested in Enterprise sized communications and information technology groups and what they consider to be the best.  I have used many in the past years and plan to share them over the next few posts on this topic, but today I wonder what our community has used?

Please share and I will make sure to highlight the best that get added.  Thanks!

That is my Information Technology Thought of the Day (ITTOD) for December 1, 2009  by Scott Coughlin.

Image Credit: enterprise-dashboard.com

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