Reporting and dashboards: choosing the right metric
For team leads, managers, analysts and operations staff who are asked to 'build a dashboard' or 'add a KPI' and want the result to support real decisions. Comfortable with percentages and basic charts; 'Reading charts and tables correctly at work' and 'Excel charts that tell the truth' cover the chart side, and 'Operations KPIs and dashboards' covers writing KPI definitions. You'll identify the decision and users a report serves before choosing any metric, choose between a dashboard, a scheduled report, an alert and a one-off analysis, derive metrics from purpose, benefits and hypotheses and pick three or four headline KPIs, spot metrics that mislead without a baseline, segments or the right population, and write the metadata a dashboard must show. Grounded in the UK Government Analysis Function's dashboard guidance and the GOV.UK Service Manual's performance measurement guides; the methods apply in any organization. Ends with a supervisor-graded metric plan.
- Level
- Intermediate
- Length
- About 90 minutes
- Contents
- 5 lessons · final exam
- Status
- Published · updated 10 Oct 2026
Skills you'll practise
- Identify the decision a report or dashboard supports and who will use it before choosing any metric
- Choose between a dashboard, a scheduled report, an alert or a one-off analysis for a stated need
- Choose metrics that follow from the purpose using benefits and hypotheses, and pick three or four headline KPIs
- Identify a metric that will mislead without context, such as a missing baseline, an unsegmented average or the wrong population, and add the context it needs
- Write the information a dashboard must show alongside its metrics: definitions, source, period, update dates, owner and accessible alternatives
Course outline
- 1.Identify the decision a report or dashboard supports and who will use itLesson · 16 min
- 2.Choose between a dashboard, a scheduled report, an alert or a one-off analysisLesson · 16 min
- 3.Choose metrics that follow from the purpose using benefits and hypothesesLesson · 20 min
- 4.Identify a metric that will mislead without context, and add the context it needsLesson · 16 min
- 5.Write the information a dashboard must show alongside its metricsLesson · 12 min
- 6.Reporting and dashboards: choosing the right metric: knowledge checkKnowledge check · 14 questions
- 7.Reporting and dashboards: choosing the right metric: practical exerciseKnowledge check · 1 question
- 8.Final exam10 questions · passing it completes the course, so people who already know the material can test out
Sources it draws on
The lessons and questions are written from these references, so learners can go back to the original.
- UK Government Analysis Function: Data visualisation: building and managing dashboards
- UK Government Analysis Function: Data visualisation: testing dashboards for design and accessibility
- GOV.UK Service Manual: How to set performance metrics for your service
- GOV.UK Service Manual: Measuring completion rate
- GOV.UK Service Manual: Measuring digital take-up
- GOV.UK Service Manual: Data you must publish (4 mandatory KPIs)
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