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A car’s dashboard isn’t there for show—it tells the driver critical information, from how fast they’re going to how much gas is in the tank. Similarly, a public dashboard does a lot more than turn facts and figures into pretty graphics. These customizable web pages share key data at a glance, helping governments to reach the public, be more productive, and achieve their goals. Here are four ways a public dashboard can benefit your organization.
Engage and build trust with the public
Today, governments and organizations must show accountability to their stakeholders. Sharing your strategic objectives and your progress towards them helps to build trust with the people you’re trying to reach. Highlighting key achievements towards community goals proves that you’re doing the work you promised to do. It also demonstrates the value that city employees and their departments provide, helping to improve relations with residents, as well as staff morale.
A public dashboard allows you to share this information with the public in a way that’s clear and easy to understand. You and your staff can report the current numbers directly without having to involve their communications or IT departments. And, because dashboards allow you to select how much detail you want to offer, they’re a great way to demonstrate accountability while keeping you in the driver’s seat of your narrative.
Motivate employees
Not all public dashboards are 100% public—many are released to an internal audience only. An internal dashboard helps your employees see their contribution and ensure they understand their role in furthering high-level goals. For instance, Broward County’s dashboard helped draw connections between day-to-day tasks and the county’s strategic plan. Employees could see they were part of a bigger picture and take pride in how they were helping to make the community better.
Many organizations see jumps in productivity after launching a dashboard. When teams can easily see how they’re tracking towards their targets, it helps motivate them to push through to completion.
Help leaders make decisions
It’s a lot easier to make smart decisions when you have reliable, current information all in one place. A dashboard collects key metrics that might otherwise be buried in spreadsheets across different departments, offices or even cities. You can see at a glance which departments, projects or processes may require more resources or a different strategy. During meetings or high-level discussions, you’re able to pull the most current information whenever you need it.
Eliminate surprises
A public dashboard makes it simple to provide regular progress updates, so there are no unpleasant surprises for you or the community. Instead of a sudden realization that a project is floundering, leaders and staff can see ahead of time where they’re falling behind and course-correct before it’s too late. Meanwhile, community members can be kept in the loop on why progress is slower than expected, and informed about measures taken to fix any issues.
A customized public dashboard for your organization
New technology, including Envisio’s Public Dashboard, lets you choose what information to share to help you achieve your goals. You can make high-level data available to the public on your website—and have an internal dashboard with more detailed metrics to keep teams on track and help leaders make informed decisions.
Ready to get started? Here are our top tips for launching your own public dashboard. Or, contact us to learn more about how you can share your team’s progress with our public dashboard.
Cara Ong
Cara has over 15 years of experience in business and product management. She is a highly organized, results-driven, strategic executive and entrepreneur with a positive attitude towards work and life.
Cara is passionate about helping organizations find effective solutions and providing forward-thinking strategies to help them achieve their goals of operational efficiency.
In her free time, Cara enjoys acrylic painting and golf.
