A 2-week dashboard rescue checklist

You have a dashboard. It’s live. It works. But traffic is dropping, and the emails asking for "raw data" are increasing.

Before you scrap it and start over, try a 2-week Dashboard Rescue Sprint.

Week 1: Audit & Simplify

Day 1: User Interviews. Talk to 3 users. Ask: "What is the ONE question you come here to answer?" and "What annoys you most?"
Day 2: The Red Pen. Print the dashboard. Circle every element that doesn't answer the questions from Day 1. Redact them.
Day 3: Speed Check. Is it taking more than 5 seconds to load? If so, aggregate the data in the backend. Performance is a feature.
Day 4: Context Injection. Add comparison lines (vs Budget, vs Last Year). A number without context is meaningless.
Day 5: Title & Label Polish. Rename "Sheet 1" to "Profitability Overview". Rename "Sum(Amt)" to "Revenue (CHF)". Language matters.

Day 6: The "So What" Test. Add a text box for commentary. Force the analyst to write why the number went down.
Day 7: Mobile Sanity Check. Does it break on an iPad? Executives live on iPads. Fix the responsive layout.
Day 8: Soft Relaunch. Show the cleaned version to your 3 interviewees. Get sign-off.
Day 9: Documentation. extensive lineage is boring, but a simple "Data last refreshed: [Timestamp]" note builds trust.
Day 10: The Demo. Re-introduce the tool to the team. Focus on "How to answer question X", not "Look at this feature".

You don't always need a new tool. Sometimes you just need to polish the one you have with a user-centric mindset.

If you don't have the internal bandwidth for this, our "Executive Dashboard Rescue" service is exactly this process, executed by experts.

If you are struggling with tactical or similar issues, we can help you build a roadmap to fix it.