Adventures in Metrics Dashboards and Management's Misadventures in Using Them
Dashboards have been a hot topic in business literature lately. Recommendations that business owners implement a dashboard for their business abound; however, advice on how to implement a dashboard is scant. I can relate to this dilemma. Occasionally, peers and potential investors would ask relatively simple questions about my aviation training company like, "What percent of your customers are repeat customers?", "What is your breakeven point?", and "What is your customer acquisition cost?" At the time, I was only slightly embarrassed that I didn’t know the answers to these questions. Regretfully, this led me to dance around the questions a bit, change the topic, and soon forget about my ignorance. I was good at flying airplanes and assembling a team of flight instructors. That's really all I needed to know. So I thought. My ignorance couldn't stay hidden forever, and I soon realized how I was hampering the growth of my company by not divi