Business Dashboards: A Visual Catalog for Design and Deployment [Paperback]

Nils H. Rasmussen (Author), Manish Bansal (Author), Claire Y. Chen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 9, 2009 | ISBN-10: 0470413476 | ISBN-13: 978-0470413470 | Edition: 1

Focusing on designing the right dashboards for use in an organization, this timely, full color book reveals how to successfully deploy dashboards by building the optimal software architecture and dashboard design. In addition, it describes the value of this popular technology to a business and how it can have a significant impact on performance improvement. A unique collection of more than 120 dashboard images are organized by category. One of the chapters provides a step-by-step description of the key performance indicator (KPIs) design process. One of the appendices contains more than 1,000 examples of KPIs to help design the content of dashboards. The book also describes all the steps in a dashboard implementation and offers related advice.

Nils Rasmussen (West Hollywood, CA) is cofounder and Principal of Solver, Inc. Claire Y. Chen (Long Beach, CA) is a Senior Business Intelligence Architect at Solver, Inc. Manish Bansal (Irvine, CA) is Vice President of Sales at Solver, Inc.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The book tackles the question from the ground up, explaining what dashboards are and what they're for, before diving deeply into data architecture and visual design, with tons of examples and illustrations. It even explains why dashboards are so popular." (Accounting Today, June 1-14, 2009)

From the Back Cover

An essential guide for successful deployment of dashboard technology for optimal organizational performance

In order for managers to make the best possible decisions in the shortest amount of time, it is essential to turn data into structured information and then present this information in a format that is easy to read and that supports analysis. Business Dashboards: A Visual Catalog for Design and Deployment is designed to empower companies and government organizations to deploy dashboards that enable their employees to optimize performance management.

Extremely user-friendly, this book is based on three underlying principles: the power of process, providing step-by-step tools that can be used in a real-world implementation; the power of examples, presenting a large number of dashboard examples in order to give you and your project team as many ideas as possible for your dashboard project; and the critical essence of good data architecture, illustrated in the authors' vision of a solid and carefully planned data architecture to support sustainable and successful dashboards.

A practical resource for what can be a daunting topic, Business Dashboards is filled with real-world examples and provides you with an understanding of:

• Why Dashboards Have Become so Popular

• The Role of Dashboards in a Business Intelligence Solution

• The Best Types of Dashboards for Your Company

• Designing Metrics and Key Performance Indicators

• How to Prepare for Implementation

• Creating the Right Business Intelligence Architecture for Dashboards

• Why a Good Architecture Is Important

• Data Warehouse Techniques

Examining all the various activities and technologies you should know about before, during, and after a dashboard implementation, Business Dashboards is your go-to resource for quick, relevant ideas to help your organization benefit from this powerful technology.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (March 9, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470413476
• ISBN-13: 978-0470413470
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 0.6 x 10 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #446,088 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Nils H. Rasmussen's passion is to create software that significantly improves an organization's bottom line by enabling them to run better and more efficiently through superior Business Intelligence software and pervasive, collaborative decision-making solutions that help their managers and employees make quicker, smarter and more informed decisions.

Nils is the CEO of Solver, Inc., a fast growing, international technology company that he founded in California in 1996. He has led the company and its subsidiaries to complete more than 1,000 Business Intelligence implementations in more than 20 countries. Solver has received several national and global awards, including Business Intelligence Partner of the Year from Microsoft, Red Herring Global 100 and the Stevie award. Nils is an international expert in Business Intelligence software and Corporate Futuring. He is a public speaker and an author of multiple books on the subject.

Using his background from Business Intelligence and forecasting technologies as well as his passion for future studies, Nils has co-founded the Rasmussen & Schoyen Think Tank that develops methodologies and solutions to anticipate, create and manage the future. The Think Tank delivers projects such as "Las Vegas 2020", which became an official selection at the World Future Society's annual international conference in Vancouver, Canada.

Before launching Solver in 1996, Nils worked with planning and forecasting for Helly Hansen, a leading, global manufacturing company, and Telenor, an international telecom company. Prior to entering the field of software technology he co-founded a newspaper with emphasis on forecasting future trends in the various growth sectors of the economy. He is also the co-author of "Secrets of the Executive Search Experts" - the U.S. bestselling book for companies on how to assess and recruit people -and in recent years several leading edge technology and performance management books published by Wiley & Sons; "Budgeting", "Process Improvement", "Business Intelligence" and "Business Dashboards".

Nils graduated with a business degree from University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon and an International MBA from Thunderbird, American Graduate School of International Management in Arizona. He is a member of the World Future Society.

Personal Web-site: www.nilshrasmussen.com

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Must have BI reference April 11, 2009

By Michael D. Emmings

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book succinctly explains correct BI and dashboard design, then provides a comprehensive blueprint to design and produce a BI enabled information management system. I am currently using it to integrate BI into my current projects and to educate my principles. It is like having access to an experienced BI consultant.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Complete coverage of Dashboards December 2, 2009

By James Harrah

Format:Paperback

This book gave me what I needed to prepare for my first dashboard project. Good background in the ETL and back-end technologies required, good coverage of best practices for KPI design, and the 100+ full color dashboard examples gave me many ideas for my own dashboards. There were also some useful tips from the "Dashboard Project Management" sections that I used.

3.0 out of 5 stars Business Dashboards: A Visual Catalog for Design and Deployment May 8, 2012

By Joseph T. Witkowski

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

In essence a great and very practical book, but if you want to use and leverage the exhibits and figures in your own project do not purchase the Kindle version. Order the full-color paperback version. The figures are illegible on my Kindle DX, which i disappointing and forced me to order the paperback version.Business Dashboards: A Visual Catalog for Design and Deployment