13.1 Planning: Audience, Questions and KPIs
A dashboard fails most often before anyone opens Excel – because nobody decided who it is for and which questions it must answer.
Steps (on paper first)
- Audience: who opens it, and how often? (Example: Ravindra Bagale, Pune city manager – every morning at 9:00 IST.)
- Questions: write 4–6 business questions. "How much did we sell yesterday and this month?", "Which city and area is behind target?", "Are deliveries getting slower?", "Which category drives sales?"
- KPIs: turn each question into one number with a clear definition (numerator, denominator, filter). Write the definitions on a
Notessheet. - Comparison: a number alone means nothing. Decide what each KPI is compared against – target, last month, or same day last week.
- Granularity and filters: what should the user be able to slice by? (Month, City, Platform, Category.)
- Sketch the layout on paper: KPI cards at the top, trend in the middle, breakdowns below, slicers on the left.
Worked example – KPI definition sheet.
| KPI | Definition | Compared with | Good direction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Net Sales | Sum of Amount, Status = Delivered | Monthly target ₹48,00,000 | ↑ |
| AOV | Net Sales ÷ Delivered Orders | Last month ₹362 | ↑ |
| Cancellation Rate | Cancelled ÷ Total Orders | Target ≤ 5% | ↓ |
| Avg Delivery Time | Average Delivery Mins, Delivered | Promise 12 min | ↓ |
Against target, March Net Sales is ₹49,50,000 ÷ ₹48,00,000 = 103.1% – on track.
Ravindra Bagale's Tip
Khup students direct charts banvayla suru kartat aani mag dashboard var 12 charts hotat pan ekahi prashnacha uttar milat nahi. Aadhi kagdavar 4–6 prashna aani pratyek KPI chi definition – numerator (अंश) aani denominator (छेद) – lihun kadha. "Sales" mhanje Delivered ki sagle orders – he aadhi thravla nahi tar do lokancha aakda kadhich match honar nahi.
Practice task
For a Nashik store manager, write five business questions and turn them into KPIs with a definition, a comparison and a good direction (↑ or ↓), in a table on a Notes sheet.