Americans have become accustomed to a curious trade-off of risk and convenience. The “check engine” lights on our car dashboards have been rigged to pop on every few thousand miles, to encourage us to let our dealers discover if anything nasty lurks under the hood. Because we know about how the system is gamed, we’re more tolerant of the light. As a result, it’s harder than ever to find an airport taxi without a “check engine” light -- drivers simply wait for a more sinister alert, like a knocking engine or smoke emerging from the hood.
Many modern workplaces aren’t very distinct from that overheated taxi. With a push for efficiency, some managers have replaced their issues status reports and meetings with dashboard tools that weren’t meant to drive a team’s focus. Unless they have been designed with actionable items as their focus, dashboards simply report problems with late tasks, missed milestones, and squandered resources. Smart project managers have discovered that dashboards can help put some of their responsibilities on auto-pilot by highlighting key issues that deserve to be placed on an issues status report.
