Why your FP&A Dashboards don’t work

Does this sound familiar?

• The metrics don’t tell the story of what matters most right now.

• They don’t flag risks and opportunities

• They aren’t forward-looking enough

As a result:

• The decision-makers rarely look at them

• You never get any comments or questions

• And few actions are being taken based on what they show

There is a different way.

Your dashboards could work much better if you keep the end result in mind.

And you need to have a structured process to choose which metrics to show.

Here is my approach:

1/

Don’t start by thinking about what metrics to choose. Start with determining the most critical elements of your company's strategy. What matters most today?

Is it:

➣ Acquiring more customers?

➣ Growing revenue per customer?

➣ Reducing expenses in area x?

2/

Then, think about what you need to know to determine two things:

a) To what extent does the strategy work?

b) What and who is driving the result?

3/

In an ideal world, which metrics would you like to track to measure a) and b)? At this stage, don’t worry about feasibility or how you get the data. Just make a list.

4/

Go through your list of ideal metrics and create a plan of how to track each of them, where to get the data from and how to prepare it. Eliminate only those where you confirmed you can’t get the data.

5/

Create your new dashboards from the resulting metrics. They tell the story of how your business is doing in the areas that matter most right now.

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