3 tragic flaws of some well-meaning dashboards
http://gcn.com/Articles/2010/10/18/Daconta-power-and-perils-of-dashboards.aspx
Finally, and most importantly, the population strategy for your dashboard should be automated and trusted. Do not bother creating fancy graphics for fake, manually input data that crumbles under its first critique. The source of your data should be as automated as possible and come directly from an authoritative data source.
For the enterprise architecture dashboard, a critical part of the population strategy is direct feeds from various existing development tools and repositories. To build trust in the dashboard, your population strategy must include lineage and data quality. Lineage is the traceability from source to resulting product and all intermediate repositories in between. In a nutshell, lineage is the roots of the data, so you can answer the question, “Where did you get that data from?”
In addition to lineage, the rest of the trust equation involves the assurance of the accuracy, completeness and timeliness of the data. Such characteristics, in addition to a few others, are delivered via a managed data quality program or initiative. Nothing will kill a dashboard faster than poor quality data.
