““… if you want to change behaviour, your metric must be tied to the behavioural change you want. If you measure something and it’s not attached to a goal, in turn changing your behaviour, you are wasting your time.” 1
In the previous article, I discussed challenges around the analytics and reporting for transforming enterprise towards lean-agile mind-set. I tried to ask the right questions to unveil the problem which, I believe, eventually becomes one of the fundamental obstacles to change. Now, it’s time to dig into details and try to find practical answers for the problem. Please remember that every organization is different and needs to discover its own path to adapt lean-agile culture and methods. Therefore, whereas my suggestions below might be a good fit with some organizations, they might not be a fit for some others, “as a movement Lean Startup must avoid doctrines and rigid ideologies.” 2 And let’s don’t forget, Lean-Agile is not about tools and methods; it’s a continuous process to adapt relentless improvement.
Why digital dashboards?
Digital dashboards are graphs and tables showing data of the key metrics in a grouped view based on main audience and meaningful categories.
As mentioned in the previous article, digital dashboards are effective tools to provide visible and transparent reports throughout a Lean-Agile (or transforming) organization. In addition to their advantage of providing a more accessible, therefore, visible tool for reporting; they also produce a better way of visualizing data. “Graphs can be used to tell complex stories. When designed well, graphs can combine a host of data spread across multiple variables to make a complex message accessible. When designed poorly graphs can bury even a simple message in a cloud of visual confusion.” 3
Another advantage of using digital dashboards is they are undoubtedly one of the best ways to visualize different metrics together. Graphs which are grouped together in a meaningful way can also help us to see the trend and pattern of the metrics as well as their correlation between each other.
General principles
“Remember metrics are meant to hurt – not to make us feel like we are winning. They must be actionable and trigger a change in our behaviour or understanding.” 4
In The Lean Startup, Eric Ries explains what “Vanity Metrics” are and why we need to avoid them. In Lean Analytics, Alistair Croll and Benjamin Yoskovits take one step ahead and dig deeper to give a detailed description of what makes metrics “good metrics.” Before discussing some practical suggestions for the metrics and dashboards, it’s important to lay down the principles to choose and define right metrics. Metrics on the dashboards can vary depending on different reasons, such as: organizational maturity for lean-agile adaptation, tools being used, or even the stage or nature of the product being developed. However, we still need to highlight main principles and stick to them to avoid creating some “fancy” dashboards which provide no valuable insight to trigger an action. Good metrics on the digital dashboards:
- Must be actionable: We need to ask this question to ourselves: If data changes from one direction to another, does it have any impact on our behaviour? If not it’s a vanity metric. Don’t add it into dashboards just because you can do it, and it looks “good”.
- Should show a trend over the selected time range: It’s important to see the pattern and understand the trend of the change. You can still have some snapshot data tables when you investigate the reason for the change. However, snapshot data itself alone doesn’t give enough insight to drive your next actions because it doesn’t tell us whether we have been performing well or badly.
- Must be understandable: How to visualize data does matter. Therefore, the graphic interface of dashboards is important. You might have the right metrics for the dashboards, but bad design and incorrect graphs can make it impossible to understand them. Another important design criterion specifically for dashboard view is how to locate correlated metrics to help to see the pattern. Seeing two (possibly) correlated metrics in Cohort analysis or next to each other can help to see the correlation and pattern.
- Keep it simple: Focus on OMTM (One Metric That Matters) which you want to optimize in a given period and other key metrics help you to understand and drive your actions. It’s very important to have fewer metrics in particularly on a dashboard view because dashboards should be a brief, transparent way of reporting drive to action. More metrics in a specific dashboard makes it harder to digest the report and to focus on important metrics. Data analytics tools and different reports still can be used for further analysis. Keep Digital Dashboards brief.
- Be transparent: Digital Dashboards should be a transparent way of reporting. In a generative culture, transparency and visibility are important values. Therefore, in a generative culture there must be either no or very limited information related Lean-Agile Portfolio and Program Management which cannot be transparently shared within the organization. However, there still might be some sensitive product development and innovation activities which we don’t want to share so don’t put them on to the dashboards. More importantly, avoid creating different role levels to reach a specific part of the data.
In the next article, I’ll be discussing the Digital Dashboards in more detail and exploring Value and Growth, Agility, Quality and Epic Overview dashboards.
1. Lean Analytics; Alistair Croll, Benjamin Yoskovitz; O’Reilly, 2013; page: 11 ↩2. The Lean Startup, Eric Ries, Portfolio Penguin, 2011, Page: 283 ↩
3. Show me the Numbers; Stephen Few; Analytics Press, 2012, page: 257 ↩
4. Lean Enterprise; Jez Humble, Joanne Molesky, and Barry O’Reilly; O’Reilly, 2015; page: 84 ↩