Use of Dashboards in Government

Fostering Transparency and Democracy Series

Use of Dashboards in Government

20

10

30

26.5

0 FIRST 40

OFFICE ACTION PENDENCY (MONTHS)

20

10

30

0 33.9 40

TRADITIONAL TOTAL

PENDENCY (MONTHS)

700k

600k

800k

500k

900k

703,175 BACKLOG

40k 50k 60k

30k

70k

20k

80k

10k

90k

62,854

RCE BACKLOG

200k250k300k

150k

350k

100k

400k

50k

450k

312,690

FISCAL YEAR PRODUCTION

156k

104k

208k

52k 157,608 260k

CLEARING 0 THE 312k

OLDEST PATENT APPLICATION (COPA)

6,400 6,600

6,200

6,800

6,794

PATENT EXAMINERS

2 2.5 3

1.5

3.5

1

4

0.5

4.5

2.46

ACTIONS PER DISPOSAL

Sukumar Ganapati Florida International University

Fostering Transparency and Democracy Series

2011

Use of Dashboards in Government

Sukumar Ganapati Associate Professor Public Administration Department School of International and Public Affairs Florida International University

Use of Dashboards in Government

Table of Contents

Foreword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Evolution of Dashboards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Dashboards in the Private Sector. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Dashboards in Government. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Key Features of Dashboards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Dashboard Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Dashboard Performance Measures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Case Studies: Federal Dashboards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Introduction to Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 The IT Dashboard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Federal Financial Transparency Dashboards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Agency-Specific Dashboards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Lessons on Uses of Dashboards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Lesson One: Data Quality is Key to the Credibility of Dashboard Performance

Measures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Lesson Two: Best Practices Resources are Necessary in the Design and Use

of Dashboards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Lesson Three: Performance Measures Should Reflect Organizational Goals. . . . . . . . . 35 Lesson Four: Dashboards are Only Tools; Effectiveness Depends on Use . . . . . . . . . . 35 References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 About the Author. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Key Contact Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

3

Use of Dashboards in Government IBM Center for The Business of Government

Foreword

On behalf of the IBM Center for The Business of Government, we are pleased to present this report, Use of Dashboards in Government, by Sukumar Ganapati, an associate professor at Florida International University.

When President Barack Obama took office, he said, "The question is not whether government is too big or too small but whether it works." But how do you know what works and what doesn't? Government leaders are deluged with thousands of streams of data about the performance of agencies and programs.

One approach that the Obama administration has pursued is the creation of dashboards to make sense of the deluge of data it receives. By using online dashboards presenting performance data, government organizations can track key performance metrics of both individual agencies and cross-departmental activities. The administration has touted the benefits of dashboards as a way of organizing and filtering performance data so that it makes sense to decision-makers. One goal of dashboards is that decisionmakers will be able to both clearly understand their organization's performance and act on that information.

One example has been the Federal Information Technology Dashboard, showing the status of dozens of technology investments across the federal government. The Obama administration claims that the dashboard, along with regular review meetings using the dashboard data, has led to decisions saving $3 billion in technology spending and cutting in half the delivery time of technology projects.

Agencies across government are now exploring the development of dashboards to both monitor internal performance and make available performance information to the public. Agencies profiled in this report include the Food and Drug Administration and the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Jonathan D. Breul Gregory J. Greben

4

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download