Think about the dashboard in your car – it isn’t there for show; it displays critical information, including how fast you are going, how much fuel you have left, and any critical updates.
Similarly, a public dashboard does much more than turn facts and figures into pretty graphics.
When it comes to strategic planning software, customisable dashboards are the perfect way to share key data, helping councils to engage their communities, be more productive, and achieve their goals. They’re about more than just keeping stakeholders informed; they help to embrace transparency and build trust between council and communities.
Here are five ways sharing your strategic plans on public dashboards can benefit your council.
Increase Transparency and Build Trust with the public
Today more than ever, accountability and transparency are top of mind for local government. Sharing your strategic objectives and your progress towards achieving them helps to build trust with key stakeholders. Highlighting key achievements towards community goals proves that you’re doing the work you promised to dero demonstrates the value that council employees and their departments provide.
Providing visibility of your plans on a public dashboard allows you to share this information with the public in a clear and easy-to-understand way. You and your team can report the current numbers directly without having to involve your communications or IT departments. And, because dashboards allow you to select how much detail you want to offer, they’re a great way to demonstrate accountability while keeping you in the driver’s seat of your narrative.
Motivate Teams
When it comes to strategic planning software, you should have the choice of whether to make your dashboards public or private. An internal dashboard helps your teams see their contribution and understand their role in furthering high-level goals. This allows them to draw connections between day-to-day tasks and council’s strategic plan. Each team member can instantly see how they are part of a bigger picture and take pride in how they are helping to make your community better.
Many departments see jumps in productivity after launching an internal dashboard. When teams can easily see how they’re tracking towards their targets, it helps motivate them to push through to completion.
Providing visibility of your plans on a public dashboard allows you to share information with the public in a clear and easy-to-understand way while increasing transparency and building trust.
Help Leaders make Data-Driven Decisions
It’s easier to make smart decisions when you have reliable, current information in one place. A dashboard collects key metrics that might otherwise be buried in spreadsheets across different departments, offices and locations.
You can see at a glance which departments, projects or processes may require more resources or a different strategy. During meetings or high-level discussions, you can pull the most current information whenever you need it.
Highlight Key Messages
While interactive dashboards visually represent your plans and progress, sometimes, it can be data overload for community members. Sharing data and insights that are important to your residents allows them to easily view information that is relevant to them. You can also highlight new and exciting projects to increase engagement and keep everyone across the progress.
Eliminate Surprises
A public dashboard makes it simple to provide regular progress updates, so there are no unpleasant surprises for you or your community. Instead of suddenly realising that a project is floundering, leaders and team members can see ahead of time where they’re falling behind and course-correct before it’s too late. Meanwhile, community members can be kept in the loop on why progress is slower than expected and informed about measures to fix any issues.
Communication creates engagement - especially when it's accurate, regular, and visually appealing. Interactive strategy dashboards that include progress updates and performance measures drive visibility and community participation, and that's powerful.
Discover how Envisio Strategic Planning Software can help you increase transparency, keep teams on track and help leaders make informed decisions.
Comments