Dash

Project Dashboards 1 Project Dashboards Project dashboards offer immediate and up to date information. Dashboards solve the “time versus information” dilemma (www.mindtools.com). Managers need information that is accurate, timely, and easily accessible. The dashboard offers this and more. Using a dashboard allows quick oversight along with the ability to drill down to more detailed information when needed. Often times a manager may be running multiple projects simultaneously. While each project will have differences they may have many similarities, these can be compared and analyzed quickly, using a dashboard to identify where one project may have problems compared to the other. According to Network World, proper installation and use of dashboards can reduce IT budgets by 30%. Most accounting systems come with a dashboard that can be used, on a simplified level, to manage a company (Figure 1.0). This is mostly from the CFO/CEO level, but can be utilized for project management on a low level. For project management software there are many different options available at a wide range of cost.

Project Dashboards 2

Figure 1.0

IBM recently purchased a company called Cognos, for $5B (www.ibm.com). The Cognos dashboard will take IBM to the next level in project management tools. “Cognos brings together technology, analytical applications, best practices, and a broad network of partners to give customers a complete performance system. The Cognos performance system is an open and adaptive solution that leverages an organization’s ERP, packaged applications, and database investments. It gives customers the ability to answer the questions —How are we doing? Why are we on or off track? What should we do about it?—and enables them to understand and monitor current performance while planning future business strategies”(www.IBM.com). There are dashboards for virtually all software programs, and they can be as specific as handling only financial information to warehouse...