6. Research Findings and Discussion

6.8 Business culture for dashboards

Participant 1 indicated that it took time to convert information into dashboards, and needed about six months to alter stakeholders' behaviour. The fact that stakeholders were exposed helped to drive the correct behaviour. Accountability was also assigned to various stakeholders to assist with the change in behaviour. He added that dashboards should not come from the top down; people do not all react the same to this approach, and there must be buy-in. To build on this, participant 2 said that dashboards must be visible to the entire team.

Participant 8 mentioned that dashboards can fall apart if they are manual and cumbersome, as they are then prone to errors and misinterpretation. The administration of dashboards must be simple. He added that defining the business process, together with verifying and auditing the dashboards, is very important. In the business unit of participant 6, employees had to learn to believe in automation, and so were sent on courses to improve their skills.

According to participant 6, the use of dashboards was picking up throughout the business, even though there was no executive sponsorship. Managers were starting to develop dashboards, based on the need to enhance their business performance.