Session 8 Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran1

2 Outline Purpose of dashboards Principles of good dashboard design Common dashboard mistakes Identifying outliers through conditional formatting Using the camera function Graphs for dashboards –Simple bar graphs –Sparklines –Bullet graphs

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran3 Provide at-a-glance overview of the major operating and performance measures relevant to a particular objective or business process Single screen Information presented in context –Focus attention on key trends, comparisons, and exceptions –Outliers clearly identified and draw attention to themselves Primarily graphical, but some numerical sections are fine Purpose of Dashboards

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran4 Dashboards focus on high-level information. –Not that much detail. –Not too many measures. Data is presented in the form of summaries and exceptions. Users can quickly identify those items that might need closer attention. Principles of Good Dashboard Design Display mechanisms are concise and clear, and often small. People’s attention is generally first drawn to the top left of the screen; put the most important information there.

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran5 Using more than one screen Not providing context for the data Displaying excessive detail or precision Bad choice of graphs for display Poorly designed graphs Introduction of meaningless variety Failure to adequately highlight the most important data “Chartjunk”: Cluttering the screen with useless decoration Misusing color Common dashboard mistakes

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran6 More than one screen: Examples of Dashboard Mistakes

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran7 More than one screen: Examples of Dashboard Mistakes

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran8 Not enough context to evaluate performance: Examples of Dashboard Mistakes

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran9 Too much detail; too much precision: Examples of Dashboard Mistakes

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran10 Useless decoration (electronic control panel): Examples of Dashboard Mistakes

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran11 Airline Executive Dashboards

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran12

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran13

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran14

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran15

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran16

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran17 Home | Styles | Conditional formatting: background and text properties Identifying Outliers

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran18 Icon Sets! Fine if you want to identify outliers based on the same values. All cutoff values must be numbers or absolute references. Consider using different shapes and not just different colors, in deference to color-blindness. Identifying Outliers

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran19 Identifying Outliers

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran20 Identifying Outliers

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran21 Add the Camera to the QAT from “Commands Not in the Ribbon.” Select a range of cells, and click on the Camera button, or Home | Paste | Other Paste Options | Linked Picture. Then anywhere in your workbook, select a cell that will be the upper left corner of a picture of this cell range. Advantages –Dynamic – will automatically be updated. –Rescalable, repositionable, not constrained by rows and columns –Can be rotated, flipped, etc. Limitations –Is often off by a pixel or two, so don’t use it for borders or fills. –Will capture background, gridlines, etc., as well. –Volatile (always recalculates), slightly funky (sometimes disappears) The Camera Function

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran22 Option 1: Text-based bar graph –D3 = Rept("|", Round(100*C3/Max($C$3:$C$8), 0)) –Copied through D8 –Font = Ariel, 8 point, vertically centered, dark blue Comparative Bar Graphs

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran23 Comparative Bar Graphs Option 2: Conditional Formatting

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran24 Set D3 = C3; copy through D8 Home | Styles | Conditional Formatting | Data Bars | More Rules |  Show Bar Only Possible to control how negative values appear, as well. Comparative Bar Graphs

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran25 Edward R. Tufte ( Beautiful Evidence, 2006) “Word size” line or bar graph, with numbers, designed to show recent trends, for context. Examples: Automatically scaled to the size of the cell they’re in. Sparklines

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran26 Insert | Sparklines | Column Problem: Miami ≈ Juneau Problem: Trinidad’s temp seems volatile Column Sparklines

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran27 Highlight the sparklines, and click on the Sparkline Tools | Design tab. –Choose “Sparkline Color” to change the bar color, if you want. –You can change the color of any of the following special columns: –High, low, all negative points, first, and/or last point. Column Sparklines –Chose “Axis”, and set Vertical Axis Minimum and Maximum Options to “Same for All Sparklines.” –Now the sparklines are much more informative.

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran28 Pretty much the same thing. Option: Change the weight (thickness) of the sparklines. Option: Add markers (of whatever color) to all points. Line Sparklines

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran29 Same contextual information as a speedometer, but much easier to interpret. Very concise display Designed by Stephen Few (Perceptual Edge) Modified 100% Stacked Bar chart, with two (identical) scales Bullet Graphs

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran30 Bullet Graphs

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran31 Transform the data into five new series –(1) Poor, (2) Satisfactory – Poor, (3) Maximum – Satisfactory, (4) Actual, and (5) Maximum – Actual Select the data (and business labels), and Insert | Charts | Bar |100% Stacked Bar (or 100% Stacked Column). –You will probably need to Design | Switch Row/Column. –Eliminate the gridlines, legend, and X-axis. –Right-click | Format Data Series | Series Options | Gap width = 50. –Right-click on each of the first four series, and Format Data Series | Fill |  Solid Fill, selecting (light) red, yellow, green, and black for the fill colors, respectively. –For the fifth series, right-click Format Data Series and select Fill |  No Fill, and Border Color |  No line. Bullet Graphs

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran32 Bullet Graphs

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran33 Start building the thin middle black bar. –Right-click the fourth (black) series, and Format Data Series | Series Options | Plot series on  Secondary Axis. Set Gap width = 300, so you can see the other series. –Now right-click on the last (blank) series to change it to the Secondary axis, in the same way. –You’ll need to once again increase the gap width of the fourth (black) series to (say) 300. –Delete the secondary axis at the top. Right-click the fourth (black) data series and Add Data Labels. Right-click the fourth (black) data series and Format Data Labels. –Change data label font to bold and white. –Select Label Options | Label Position |  Inside End. Bullet Graphs

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran34 Take-aways Dashboards are designed to give an “30,000 foot” overview of the performance of the organization. –Not too detailed; limited to a single screen. Variety of tools are useful in constructing dashboards. –Conditional formatting to identify outliers. –Camera function for superseding row and column restrictions. –Comparative bar charts. –Sparklines for concisely displaying trends. –Bullet graphs for concisely showing performance in context.

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran35 Use conditional formatting to draw attention to outliers –Through background shading. –By adding an icon before the number. –Turn numbers under 65% red. –Make the largest of a range of numbers bold. Use Excel’s Large() function to make the second largest value italic. Or, feel free to use Conditional Formatting | Top/Bottom rules to accomplish the same task. –Improve readability by using Excel’s Row() function to turn the background shading of every three rows to very, very light grey. Install the camera function, if it’s not already on your QAT. Use the camera to capture a region and display it on a different worksheet. Hands-on Practice

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran36 Construct a comparative bar chart using. Use both techniques (text and conditional formatting). Construct a column sparkline with. Then construct a line sparkline, with a marker at the last point in the series. Construct a bullet graph; see for data. –Lots of detailed steps –The hardest part might be moving the final two series to the secondary axis. Hands-on Practice

Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling -- Prof. Juran37 Deliverable: Dashboard For Next Time