Lesson 6: The CIO Wants a Dashboard… Now What? – Delivering Reports That Actually Matter

By Tom Jones, IT Project Manager

Welcome back to my 21-part series on lessons learned throughout my IT project management career. Today, we’re diving into a scenario that every IT project manager will face at some point: executive dashboards.

It usually starts with an innocent request from leadership:

• “Can you put together a simple dashboard for me?”

• “I just need a real-time view of key metrics.”

• “Make it easy to drill down into the details.”

What sounds like a quick request can quickly spiral into weeks of meetings, misaligned expectations, and a never-ending cycle of revisions.

In today’s lesson, I’ll cover: ✅ Why most executive dashboards fail. ✅ How to define a dashboard that actually helps decision-making. ✅ The 5 golden rules for dashboard success. ✅ How ezRACI helps ensure dashboard accountability.

The Dashboard That Became a Black Hole

In 2009, I was leading a large-scale IT security project when our CIO requested a simple “real-time” dashboard to track compliance metrics.

What started as a straightforward request quickly turned into an endless feedback loop:

• The CIO wanted high-level KPIs, but the compliance team wanted deep audit logs.

• The finance team asked for budget burn rates, but security leadership needed risk scores.

• Every executive had a different idea of what ‘real-time’ meant.

We burned through 3 months of development time, only for the dashboard to be used twice and abandoned.

That’s when I realized: Dashboards don’t fail because of bad data. They fail because they’re designed for the wrong audience.

The 5 Golden Rules for Executive Dashboards

Want to avoid dashboard disasters? Follow these five rules:

✅ 1. Define the Audience First

❌ What happens: Dashboards try to satisfy everyone, so they end up helping no one.

✅ Fix it:

• Who is the dashboard for? A CIO, a project manager, a department head?

• What decision will they make based on this data?

• If multiple teams need different views, build separate dashboards—don’t clutter one.

✅ 2. Focus on Business Outcomes, Not Data Points

❌ What happens: Dashboards get filled with meaningless numbers that don’t drive action.

✅ Fix it:

• Every metric should answer: “So what?”

• A great dashboard should highlight trends, risks, and necessary actions—not just data dumps.

• Use visual indicators (green, yellow, red) to guide decision-making.

✅ 3. Real-Time Data Isn’t Always the Answer

❌ What happens: Executives demand real-time updates, even when daily or weekly reports would be just as effective.

✅ Fix it:

• Ask: “How often does this data actually change?”

• Use batch reporting when real-time adds no business value.

• Avoid unnecessary stress on IT systems by pulling only what’s truly needed.

✅ 4. Less is More – Keep It Simple

❌ What happens: Dashboards turn into cluttered messes with too many charts, graphs, and filters.

✅ Fix it:

• Keep it to 5 key metrics per audience.

• Make it mobile-friendly—if an executive can’t understand it in 30 seconds, it’s too complex.

• Provide drill-down capabilities, but don’t clutter the main view.

✅ 5. Use a RACI Matrix to Define Dashboard Ownership

❌ What happens: No one knows who is responsible for updating, validating, or fixing dashboard data.

✅ Fix it:

• Create a Dashboard RACI Matrix (via ezRACI).

• Define who owns the data, who maintains the dashboard, and who approves changes.

• Ensure business and IT alignment—IT can build the dashboard, but business leaders must define what’s important.

How ezRACI Helps Build Dashboards That Don’t Get Abandoned

One of the biggest challenges with executive dashboards is accountability. That’s why I use ezRACI to:

✅ Assign clear roles for who owns dashboard updates and maintenance. ✅ Ensure executive alignment by mapping dashboards to decision-making needs. ✅ Track dashboard adoption to see if it’s actually being used—or needs to be redesigned.

If your organization struggles with dashboard chaos, ezRACI can help you streamline ownership and visibility.

Final Thoughts: Dashboards Are Tools, Not Toys

The biggest lesson I’ve learned? Dashboards should enable decisions, not just display data.

✔️ Define the audience before building anything. ✔️ Measure business outcomes, not just raw numbers. ✔️ Make ownership clear so dashboards stay useful.

Next time, in Lesson 7: Surviving Your First IT Audit, I’ll share how documentation gaps can turn an audit into a nightmare—and how to prepare before auditors come knocking.

Disclaimer: This blog is written from the perspective of Tom Jones, a fictional IT Project Manager, and is intended for informational and educational purposes. While based on real-world project management principles, all anecdotes and characters in these posts are entirely fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental. The blog also references ezRACI, a project management tool designed to help teams succeed in project execution. However, these opinions are solely those of the fictional character and do not constitute an official endorsement.