Dashboard rot as org attention grave markers
Short summary
This article examines the high rate of unused and broken dashboards in organizations, highlighting how they often fail to provide lasting value. It discusses the disconnect between dashboard creation and actual usage, driven by shifting priorities and limited attention spans within teams. The piece also touches on the implications of this phenomenon for organizational behavior and project management.
- About half of an org's dashboards audited turned out to be broken or ignored, raising the question of why they were built at all.
- Dashboards act as "grave markers" for past priorities—built for a moment of attention that fades as new projects compete for focus.
- Letting teams self-manage their own dashboards helped somewhat, but didn't solve the core problem since attention still shifts away as new initiatives emerge.
- Organizational attention is a genuinely limited resource (with academic grounding), so strategic planning that overcommits people guarantees old dashboards get abandoned.
Full summary
The piece examines the phenomenon of "dashboard rot" within organizations, where many dashboards become obsolete or unusable over time. The author shares a personal experience of compiling a list of dashboards, only to find that about half were either broken or ignored entirely. This raises a significant point: if no one is monitoring these dashboards, why were they created in the first place? The author suggests that the overwhelming number of dashboards reflects a temporary need that quickly fades as organizational priorities shift.
As teams frequently request new dashboards, they often do so without realizing the long-term implications of maintenance and the potential for clutter. The author initially resisted adding to the dashboard pile, urging teams to focus on a few vital metrics instead. Over time, a shift occurred where teams were encouraged to create and manage their own dashboards, leading to a more sustainable system. However, this model still suffers from a common issue: as new projects arise, attention diverts away from existing dashboards, leaving them unused.
The article also touches on the limited capacity for attention within organizations. Strategic planning exercises often result in overcommitment, with individuals juggling multiple priorities, which leads to neglect of older dashboards. The author notes that these neglected dashboards serve as relics of past initiatives, offering insights into organizational behavior but little practical value. The piece concludes that the concept of attention in organizational contexts has academic backing, hinting at a broader understanding of how attention dynamics shape decision-making and resource allocation in companies.