Enterprise Dashboard projects seem at first to be about the technology, but soon project team members realize that the difficult part of the process is not the dashboard technology, but the requirements gathering and  information architecture. No application development project needs skilled IAs and business analysts more than an enterprise dashboard project.

The boxes and arrows site has a great article on quick ways to create sitemaps for your project. Definitely worth reading at http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/the_lazy_ia_s_guide_to_making_sitemaps. Take their advice and don’t let your sitemaps wind up looking like this:

Different business focuses drive the need for different types of enterprise dashboards. Author Malik uses the following dashboard categories:

Considering the myriad applications of dashboards within organizations,
dashboards may be grouped into the following major categories:
• Enterprise performance dashboards
• Divisional dashboards
• Process/activity monitoring dashboards
• Application dashboards
• Customer dashboards
• Vendor dashboards

So what or who is The Dashboard Spy? Word is that he’s just a guy interested in the design of business dashboards – but one that is positioned extremely well. He could not find any executive dashboard design source books and so set about creating his own. Finally convinced to post his extensive collection of dashboard screenshots online, he was amazed to find how popular it has become. If you have a nice screenshot to share, please leave a comment or send an email to info _at_ dashboardspy.com. Also check out The Dashboard Spy’s favorite books.