| | DECEMBER 20189CIOReviewThe visualizations they create will drive your business decisions, and you will need clear, unbiased information to make the best choices for your businessInstant Information - Do you expect to have instant access to data through a clear, concise, robust, yet straightforward dashboard of your 30 favourite new and yet-to-be-defined metrics? Building useful visualizations take time. Having precise requirements helps, as does an understanding of the business questions you need to answer. Agile development that is incrementally delivering business value as the dashboard is completed and refined is a great way to meet your initial time requirements while providing analysts time to supplement and improve their ultimate deliverable.Changing Requirements - How often do your key metrics change? Do your executive dashboards require metric swaps every few months? Chasing a tactical metric frustrates your analysts and keeps you from seeing your business from a strategic perspective. Your key metrics should be tied to your executive goals for your business and should not change unless those goals change. Select your parameters, clarify the requirements for them, and don't change them unless necessary. You need to build history to put the present into context to keep from making knee-jerk reactions to business volatility. Overly-detailed Data - How deep down the rabbit hole do you want to travel? Do you want to be able to self-serve down to the most granular level of data available in your systems? Do you have that kind of time? Trust your analysts. Let them know the questions you need answered and let them do the massive analysis. It's what they do and what they love. It will also improve what they can deliver to you. You will get clear, focused visualizations instead of complicated, confusing data dumps. There is a vast difference between visualizations designed for executive reporting and those designed for analytical exploration. You have to look at your business from a higher level, so don't let yourself get down in the weeds with your expectations for data. Challenge or Champion?You will determine the path of your data visualization program through your proactive decisions or lack of direction. Invest in technology, people, processes, and data infrastructure to set your company up for success. After those are in place, your work is not finished. Your expectations can maximize or minimize visualizations. Understand the time requirements necessary to build compelling, sustainable visualizations. Be clear and strategic with your needs. Remember your role and your analysts' role - don't switch them. Will you be the biggest challenge or biggest champion to your viz community? Kevin Loudermilk
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