6 Things to Consider for Building Analytics Dashboards

Andy Sawyer, a data strategy leader, critiques the prevalent overemphasis on dashboards in the analytics industry, suggesting that their allure often overshadows more substantive analytical work. While dashboards can effectively communicate data and monitor key metrics, they risk offering surface-level insights that can mask complexities, lead to analysis paralysis, or create a false sense of a data-driven culture. Sawyer stresses the importance of distinguishing between the roles of insights analysts, who derive actionable insights through deep data analysis, and dashboard developers, who focus on visual presentation. He illustrates the effective integration of dashboards and analytics through a case study in healthcare marketing, where a targeted dashboard was used to address marketing inefficiencies, resulting in improved strategies and better patient care. The article concludes with a call to balance dashboards with in-depth analytics, advocating for a culture of curiosity and deeper understanding to achieve meaningful business outcomes.