Gerald Ajam

“Dashboards create visibility”

A dashboard shows what was measured. Visibility needs a question and an action.

Status Position

Published September 2026

All the claims I’m unconvinced bySystems

Usually said

“Dashboards create visibility”

The shift

From: Show the data

To: Show the data a decision needs

More precisely

A dashboard makes a decision visible when each figure is tied to a named question and action, and it shows only the part of the situation that was measured.

In short

A dashboard puts shared numbers in front of people, which beats arguing from anecdote. It can only show what was measured, though, and it tends to show what was easy to measure. Once people are judged by a number, they work on the number. Visibility comes from tying each figure to a decision.

The argument

From the claim to a better one

  1. The strongest formulation

    Decisions made without data rely on anecdote and the loudest voice. A dashboard puts the same numbers in front of everyone, quickly, and makes problems harder to ignore.

  2. Why it is attractive

    It is a visible deliverable that looks like oversight. It turns a messy situation into something that fits on a screen.

  3. Where it holds

    It holds when each figure answers a question someone has already agreed to act on, and the people acting can see its uncertainty.

    Where it breaks

    It breaks when it shows what was easy to log rather than what matters. What is off the screen becomes invisible, and once a figure is watched people work to move it rather than the thing it stood for.

  4. What evidence matters

    Goodhart’s law, and Campbell (1979) on how a quantitative indicator used for decisions becomes corrupted and corrupts the process it monitors. The base rate matters for any alert. What matters is whether decisions changed, and whether they were better, after the dashboard existed.

  5. So, more precisely

    A dashboard makes a decision visible when each figure is tied to a named question and action, and it shows only the part of the situation that was measured.

Reading it

The precise version, word by word

A dashboard makes a decision visible3 when each figure is tied to a named question and action1, and it shows only the part of the situation that was measured2.

  1. Tied to a named question and action

    Each figure is there because someone has agreed what they will do if it moves. A figure with no action attached is decoration.

  2. Only the part of the situation that was measured

    What is off the screen still exists. A good dashboard says what it leaves out.

  3. Makes a decision visible

    The test of a dashboard is whether decisions changed, and got better. A clearer picture is the means.

What it changes in practice

  • Start from the decisions people make, then choose the figures. Starting from whatever happens to be logged gets it backwards.
  • Show uncertainty and base rates next to any alert.
  • Watch for figures that improve while the thing they stand for does not.
  • Retire figures nobody acts on.

A case, in general terms

A course team builds a dashboard of logins and video views. Within a term, staff are nudging students to log in, and logins rise. Pass rates do not move. A second version starts from one question: which students are at risk of failing the first assignment? It shows three figures, each tied to a specific outreach step. It is less impressive to look at and far more useful.

Singapore