Report Your KPIs

Dashboard? That’s just a posh name for a report, isn’t it?

By Bernie | May 17, 2012

I had an interesting conversation with a company lawyer a little while ago. We were discussing dashboards and she said “It makes me laugh when people talk about dashboards, it is just a posh way of describing a report!”. It made me think as it seems to be a common misconception. What is the difference between…

report saying yes

How to keep your reports short and effective

By Bernie | November 24, 2011

Which is the easier question to answer?: “Tell me about France” or, “Tell me about the restaurants in the village of Venosc that serve Italian food” ? It’s very obviously the latter (assuming you have the information available in the first place). It’s the difference between these two questions that explains how some reports can be…

Data Analysis – 10 Point Checklist

By Bernie | September 6, 2011

How good is your organisation at analysing the data you produce? Carefully answer these questions (you can use a 1-5 scale to improve the resolution of the checklist, where 1 is low/poor and 5 is high/strong). Are data and reports separate entities? Does revision of reports require manual intervention? Is there flexibility in cutting data…

BlinkCharts, what they are and why you need them

By Bernie | July 22, 2011

A bog standard Excel chart/graph Most people just use the default graphs on Excel, perhaps with a colour change or two. Who says that Microsoft knows how much detail to put on your graphs? The default graphs (or charts, if you speak Microsoft English) are jam-packed with clutter. Why should you care? Every piece of…

Digital Watch - is it any quicker?

Graphs, your choice of watch and how not to get eaten.

By Bernie | April 11, 2011

I can still remember how excited I was when, aged 7, I got my first digital watch. It was clear to me that digital watches, with their accuracy and lack of complicated hands, were going to conquer the world. So why am I here 33 years later with an analogue watch? Surprisingly it’s to do…

Lazy and dull

By Bernie | October 25, 2010

What are the dangers of using defaults on Excel and why do we put up with it?