Many businesses reach a point where the person in charge can no longer see what is happening by looking in one place.
Sales figures are in one system. Job status is somewhere else. Support issues are in an inbox. Renewal dates are in a spreadsheet. Finance figures are in the accounts package. The important exceptions may be known by the team, but not written down anywhere helpful.
So a perfectly reasonable request gets made:
Can you just give me a summary each month?
Someone creates a spreadsheet. They pull together the numbers. They add a few tabs, some formulas, maybe a simple chart or a red, amber, green status.
For a while, it works. The manager gets a clearer view. The business feels a little more under control.
Then the spreadsheet starts taking up hours every month.
You may recognise this
This kind of dashboard has a few familiar signs:
- one person knows where all the figures come from
- some numbers are copied in by hand every month
- someone has to chase updates before the report can be finished
- the dashboard helps, but nobody fully trusts it until it has been checked
- the person maintaining it has quietly become the reporting department
None of that means the spreadsheet was a bad idea. It may have been the quickest way to see what was going on.
But it’s worth noticing when the spreadsheet stops being a quick summary and starts becoming part of the monthly workload.
The spreadsheet needs feeding
The spreadsheet was meant to make things easier to see. But now someone has to keep feeding it.
They export figures from one place, copy numbers from another, chase someone for an update, check whether last month’s formula still works, find the latest version, and add comments to explain why a number looks unusual.
They may also have to reconcile two figures that should match but don’t.
The spreadsheet has helped the manager see the problem, but it hasn’t removed the work needed to produce the numbers.
What happens when that person is not available?
This is where the problem becomes obvious.
The person who built the dashboard is away, leaves the business or is simply too busy with their actual job.
Suddenly, the monthly summary is late, wrong or missing.
The manager who relied on it is left trying to work out:
- where the numbers came from
- which systems need checking
- which version is current
- what the formulas mean
- whether the figures can be trusted
- what action should be taken from the report
At that point, the business is relying on more than the spreadsheet. It also depends on the person who knows how to collect, check and explain the figures.
Don’t start by rebuilding the dashboard
It’s tempting to tidy the spreadsheet. Add better formulas. Lock some cells. Improve the layout. Create another tab. Make the chart nicer.
Sometimes that is enough, especially if the spreadsheet is small and the figures are easy to collect.
But if the dashboard takes hours to produce, the spreadsheet may not be the first thing to fix.
Start with the work behind it. Which numbers are copied by hand? Which ones need chasing? Which ones come from systems that don’t talk to each other? Which figures are questioned every month?
That tells you more than the dashboard design does.
What to check before changing anything
Before you rebuild the dashboard, do a quick audit of how it’s produced.
- list each number in the dashboard
- write down where that number comes from
- mark which numbers are copied, exported or pasted manually
- note which updates depend on one person knowing what to do
- circle the part that takes longest or causes the most checking
That last point is the best place to start.
Not with a grand replacement for every system. Just the part of the reporting process that keeps wasting time or making people doubt the figures.
This is often a good fit for a small build
A monthly dashboard can be a good starting point for a focused build because the business has already done some of the thinking.
The spreadsheet can tell us:
- which numbers are important
- where the information comes from
- who needs to see it
- where the manual work is happening
- which parts are repeated every month
A Day-1 Build would not replace every system in the business. That would be too big.
But it may be able to replace the most painful part of the reporting process with a small working system that keeps the important numbers in one place and makes them easier to trust.
For example, instead of someone rebuilding the same spreadsheet every month, the business might have one simple place to record the few numbers that matter, track the status behind them, and show management a live view they can trust.
A simple test
Look at your current management dashboard or monthly reporting spreadsheet.
Then ask:
If the person who maintains this was unavailable next month, would we still know how to produce it and trust the result?
If the answer is no, the spreadsheet may already be carrying more than you think.
Have a monthly dashboard that takes too much manual work to produce? See the kinds of business problems we help fix.