What's your perfect dashboard?

I was recently asked to be the keynote speaker at the Digital Transformations conference. I spoke on the evolving CIO dashboard. What is the perfect dashboard? I have often thought of this problem. I have come to the Malcolm Gladwell conclusion that there is no perfect dashboard but the perfect dashboards. This was taken from one of his most famous Ted Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce

While no single dashboard can possibly satisfy everyone, there is a single format that can be utilized that can be utilized by almost any department across the enterprise while you are figuring out your own “perfect dashboard.” The perfect dashboard must satisfy one requirement: No matter how much time you have, you return to this same board each time—ok, most of the time. If you have one second to see how your day is, this board will satisfy you.This could be mobile or at your desk. It has to be the same dashboard. If you have 2 minutes or 30 minutes it is the same board each time. With that concept in mind, let’s start with each of the “thin slices.”

I only have 2 Seconds

As the CIO, you have priorities that make sure you get those RSUs and keep your job. You take care of these things, you stay. You let these slide, you are out. The first of those is the SLAs of your infrastructure. In two seconds, how is the environment? Is it all green? Then in one second, we can move on? For me, this is network uptime, security incidents and production uptime. You notice on top my picture, the security incident has a one  and yet is green. This simply means that the incident could be something small and not enough to turn the Domo card red. This could be that someone has spent enough time SSH-ing to port 22 and it caused an incident that will be looked into. With Domo, I can even get an alert if something like this happens.  If I only had two seconds, this is where I look to know what’s going on. If it’s all good and I have more time, I move to the next section.

I have 12 seconds

The CIO has considerable risk around the amount of money he is spending. This spend can come from a few places that every CIO will want to review. This is hardware and software spend, views on projects, headcount and consultants. Many times, CIOs are measured around OPEX and CAPEX dollars. What do the budget variances look like? This is what belongs in the 12 second view. Domo does a great job of showing this. The screenshots posted represent some of the tools I use in Domo. I have provided sample data only in these pictures.  But they are actual examples of the dashboards that I use everyday. This is my 12 second view.

In this Domo pic, I can see much more than people realize. I can see who subscribes or who I shared my particular card with. I can then see what I think really makes DOMO different than the rest. Its called Buzz. Buzz allows real time chats around that card. If our CIO has a question, he simply ask about that card. Then I can reply. This also is shared with others who may chime in and see the conversation around a card. This alone changed my Friday meetings from reviewing data to making it actionable right from the start of the meeting. Domo on Domo makes my meetings easier, faster and more actionable than you can imagine. It also gives a constant transparency to all the things I help manage.

Next time I will write what types of KPIs and cards we use at Domo to show just how deep the CIO can go when needed. Finally, I will be showing CLOUD OP KPIs and what every person who manages almost anything in the cloud will want to know.