Introduction

Great dashboards help leaders understand performance quickly and make better decisions.
This practical program builds core skills in choosing the right visuals, designing clean layouts, applying best-practice dashboard standards, and delivering dashboards that are accurate, consistent, and easy to use across stakeholders.

Course Objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Select the right chart for the message and audience
• Apply dashboard design principles for clarity and focus
• Build consistent KPI visuals with targets and trends
• Improve usability with simple navigation and filtering
• Quality-check dashboards for accuracy and governance

Target Audience

This course is designed for:

• Senior reporting specialists and analysts
• Corporate planning and performance reporting teams
• BI and dashboard developers (Power BI/Tableau/Excel)
• KPI owners preparing executive dashboards
• Anyone responsible for dashboards and management reports

Course Outline

Day 1: Visualization Foundations and Common Mistakes

• Why dashboards fail: clutter, unclear purpose, wrong visuals
• Audience and decision questions (what users need)
• Chart selection basics: line, bar, waterfall, scatter (when to use)
• Data integrity basics: definitions, time periods, comparability
• Activity: Critique a sample dashboard and list improvements

Day 2: Dashboard Layout and Information Hierarchy

• Page structure: overview first, details next
• Visual hierarchy: what to put top-left and why
• Using whitespace, alignment, and consistent formatting
• KPI tiles: target, actual, trend, and status (simple format)
• Workshop: Sketch a dashboard wireframe (paper prototype)

Day 3: KPI Visualization Best Practices

• Showing targets and thresholds (RAG rules)
• Trend and variance views (what to include)
• Comparing categories: ranking, top/bottom, Pareto basics
• Avoiding misleading visuals (scales, baselines, too many colors)
• Activity: Redesign KPI visuals for clarity and comparability

Day 4: Interactivity, Filtering, and User Experience

• Filters and slicers: keep them simple and meaningful
• Drill-down vs drill-through (simple usage)
• Tooltips and definitions for KPI understanding
• Accessibility basics: labels, legends, readability
• Case study: Improve a dashboard’s navigation and usability

Day 5: QA, Governance, and Delivery

• Dashboard QA checklist: data, logic, refresh, formatting
• Version control and change approval process
• Performance considerations: reducing complexity (high level)
• Publishing and feedback loops with stakeholders