I think a Data Design Process encourages teams to approach dashboards with methodology instead of focusing only on tools.
To test your team’s methodological maturity, ask a data analyst about the last dashboard released:
- Who were the target users?
- How they can share feedback or questions?
- What decision is this solution supposed to support?
Very often, the answer is: "I don’t know" or "we don’t have a method".
Last week, we explored the Discovery step.
Today, we move to the next step: Define.
And I think this is one of the most overlooked step in BI projects.
Discovery creates divergence.
Define should create convergence.
This is where insights become decisions.
Where use cases are prioritized.
Where the scope of the project becomes clear.
I often think BI dashboards are used for macro-level steering.
They touch many teams.
Many questions.
Large portions of the data landscape.
Without a strong Define phase, the scope expands endlessly.
The dashboard becomes a compromise between perspectives.
But the dashboards that truly create value are different.
In my experience, they are tied to specific users.
Specific decisions.
Specific objectives.
That clarity should happen during the Define step.
This is part 2 of a 4 part series.
Next week, we’ll explore the Design phase.
If you feel your team is building dashboards without a clear framework, we can start with a methodology audit this week:
Begin your Analytics framework audit
Have a great week everyone!
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