ACCA Strategic Professional · Advanced Performance Management · Management reports
Halvern Logistics uses a dashboard for depot managers. It currently shows 35 metrics with equal prominence, and managers rarely act on exceptions. Which redesign best improves the dashboard's usefulness for control?
The best redesign is a limited set of strategy-linked key indicators with targets, trends and exception flags. This directs attention to significant deviations and supports timely action. Keeping all metrics, removing targets or reporting only annual totals leaves overload, lacks context or loses timeliness.
- AKeep all 35 metrics but reduce the font size so they fit on one page
- BShow a limited set of key indicators linked to strategy, with targets, trend and exception flags for significant deviationsCorrect
- CRemove all targets so managers focus on raw figures
- DReport only annual totals to reduce noise
Explanation
Effective dashboards are selective, linked to critical success factors, and use comparisons with targets and exception highlighting to direct attention. Shrinking fonts keeps overload, removing targets removes context, and annual totals eliminate timeliness.
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