Update on Google Spreadsheet Dashboards

Now that we’ve been using Google Spreadsheets for our KPI Dashboards over the past two weeks, as previously discussed earlier this month, I wanted to provide a quick update on what’s working well and what’s not working so well. Let’s jump right in and talk about what we’ve learned.

• The color coding based on percent of goal really does work well. Instead of spending the first five minutes of our weekly tactical going around and saying our KPIs for the previous week, we only talk about the yellow and red cells, meaning items below goal get more attention.
• We don’t have too many weeks of data, but I can already see how over time we’ll be able to quickly identify trends based on a short glance at the cell colors.
• Each week the previous week’s values are copied into a new column to be filled out Friday afternoon for discussion at the Monday morning meeting. Google Spreadsheets doesn’t have an easy way to make certain cells in the formula fixed, resulting in having to update 10+ formulas each week. Does anyone know a better solution?
• The Google Spreadsheet is shared with the rest of the company providing greater transparency for all team members.

Overall, I think Google Spreadsheets for KPI Dashboards work great and I highly recommend it to other managers and entrepreneurs.