Dashboards, also known as cockpit or instrument panel charts, help to clearly present numerical information. They offer the possibility of displaying multiple figures on one page and presenting important project information at a glance. This is achieved using graphical displays such as speedometers, progress bars, symbolic warning lights, as well as diagrams and tables.

Dashboards are particularly well-suited for displaying business figures and key performance indicators, making them ideal for use in sales, finance, production and customer service.
Generally, there are two types of dashboards with different areas of application:

1. The compelling dashboard
This dashboard highlights a problem and symbolically represents the necessary actions. It also helps to graphically illustrate success or failure.

2. The informative dashboard
This dashboard provides information on the current status of a process. It offers an overview of key performance indicators and progress. Unlike the first dashboard, its goal is not to persuade, but to effectively inform.

Of course, selecting the right content for the dashboard is essential. For better clarity, it's advisable to divide the content into levels. This division shouldn't be seen as absolute, but rather as a guideline:

• Higher management level
  Includes the project's most important key performance indicators (KPIs). These are usually financial metrics.
• Project management level
  Includes plan-actual comparison for the ongoing project, progress charts, and risk analyses.
• Team level
  Here you will find all project content, technical data and how this data is related.

Examples of cockpit charts and dashboards

To make things easier to understand, we have collected some examples for you:

category	Content and presentation	Example
General status display	Arrows, traffic lights, speedometer
Text fields	Areas for placeholder text
Appointments	Plans, milestones, progress
Cost	Diagrams, cost trends over time, forecasts
Project progress	Tasks, burn-down charts
resources	Overview of the team, responsible parties, overtime, resource availability, capacities

In our shop, we have compiled the best dashboards for visualizing data, including speedometers and cockpit charts .
Take a look around and get inspired!