Keeping your Organization on the Road with a Dashboard

An important element of running a successful development program, and a successful organization, is to have effective management and reporting tools in place.

This article from BlueAvacado presents a nice model for reports to the board that help managers present information about the organization at the adequate level of detail, with coding that aids in comprehension. They call it a Dashboard and it looks like this:

Just like a traffic light, the green areas represent areas where things are running smoothly, yellow represents caution, and red represents danger. You can create one of these matrices for each major area of operations: Development, Finance, Human Resources, Programs, Compliance, Risk Management, Board Involvement, etc.

The key is to focus on measurable indicators of performance, rather than process oriented issues. Also, give appropriate levels of detail: not too much & not too little. Also, the benchmarks should be set at the time that goals are determined so management can quickly grasp which elements are working and which ones need more attention to support the the organization's needs and goals.

Check it out:

http://www.blueavocado.org/content/nonprofit-dashboard-and-signal-light-boards