If you want to successfully launch a product, you should have a plan laid out. What helps in this process is having a proper product operations dashboard that communicates your key goals and metrics.
So whether you are a product developer or product manager, we prepared a product ops dashboard guide to help you arrive at the results you’re searching for.
Product Operations Dashboard Definition
A product operations dashboard is an interactive real-time monitoring of important KPIs that allows instant access to vital data. An operational dashboard divides key indicators and information from data that’s all over the place and offers them to users clearly and quickly, allowing users to perform tasks faster. To prevent high-risk operations, the operational dashboard needs to monitor data in real-time.
You may also split the data to instantly get answers. Want to see how many new users are completing a specific action and coming via a new acquisition channel? Do you want to discover how a new feature you are testing will affect your business? You should be able to get the answers to these questions on your dashboard in real time so you can make as many course corrections as necessary.
Tips on Putting Together a Product Operations Dashboard
Below is a list of things to keep in mind when crafting a product operations dashboard. For a more thorough view of the steps needed, different experienced product development consultancy provide services that help businesses grow.
Who’s Your Audience?
Starting with “why” is the best approach. That way you will arrive at the answer of who your primary audience is. The other portion of the process will be a lot simpler if your dashboard’s target audience is precisely identified.
Consult your sales, marketing, and product teams for suggestions. Align your definition of the target audience with the way your company defines it; they may do so using a persona, a title, a role, or any other number of characteristics. Use the terminology that your company is familiar with using.
You’ll frequently discover that your product dashboard has a variety of possible targets, none of which should be a high priority. So first determine your primary target audience.
What Goals are You Trying to Achieve?
What are your product dashboard goals? Are you aiming for more leads and sales? Are you trying to find a way to get more sales and leads? Do you want more effective marketing?
These are a few of the various goals that a dashboard can assist your team. If it’s more geared for a C-suite or shareholder audience, then you have the following objectives:
- Being able to quickly assess the company’s cash flow position
- Comparing the company’s revenue figures from this quarter to those from the same quarter last year
- Examining the overall earnings and expenditures for digital advertising
Define the Stack
The quality of the data used to build your product ops dashboard will determine it. Pay attention that you’re collecting all the information you’ll require for a complete overview. Getting a thorough glimpse of what is available is the first step in the procedure.
You’ll need to be aware of the tools you’re employing. You must grasp how they work together and how each department intends to employ them. Additionally, you need to understand the triggers for various situations and the digital footprint those leave to determine when and where data travels from one location to another.
If your company has already implemented company architecture planning, all this will be much quicker. The majority of the bases are covered by those exercises’ artifacts. if your architecture doesn’t already have a comprehensive guide, then it’s time for a proper dive into which data sources are on offer.
What KPIs are Important?
Various KPIs can help your case if you are aware of your main responsibilities and daily essential tasks. If you really have in-depth knowledge of the industry this stage can be way easier. If you don’t, you are in danger of wasting your time by building a dashboard that nobody uses.
Decluttering the information is vital because the risk dashboards lie in the fact that it’s easy to get lost in all the information. An abundance of pie-charts, graphs, and numbers can put you on the wrong path, leading to your team wasting energy and money.
Final Word
Throughout the entire process, communication and cooperation with the team are important. You might also bear in mind that it is ok to push back on unrealistic requests, especially if they don’t align with the objectives of the dashboard.
Before you go, here is a quick rundown of the things you should be looking at to get to your goal:
- Be precise about your end goal – your board’s aim will guide its design
- Incorporate just the information needed – you shouldn’t have the dashboard cluttered with information
- Consider data-ink ratio – limit decorative elements that don’t truly get the message across
- Round your numbers – being too precise can cloud some important moves you should make
- Use efficient visualization – good visualization helps get the message across quickly
- Group the related metrics – make the dashboard user-friendly and easy to read
- Be consistent – using the same visualizations and layouts helps make a consistent picture of the situation
- Give your numbers context – don’t just spread out different numbers without explanation
- Keep evolving your dashboards – check that your dashboard is engaging the right people
Remember, with a dynamic real-time view of how the product is performing your staff can be better aligned. Most importantly, it can understand the impact of the product strategies on the metrics your organization values the most.
