Hello all, prepare to be amazed! Here are 43 creative, fun & informative ways to visualize KPI data.
About a month ago, I asked you to visualize KPI data. We received 65 entries for this contest. After carefully reviewing the entries, our panel of judges have discarded 22 of them due to poor charting choices, errors or just plain data dumps. We are left with 43 amazing entries, each creatively analyzed the data and presented results in a powerful way.
How to read this post?
This is a fairly large post. If you are reading this in email or news-reader, it may not look properly. Click here to read it on chandoo.org.
- Each entry is shown in a box with the contestant’s name on top. Entries are shown in alphabetical order of contestant’s name.
- You can see a snapshot of the entry and more thumbnails below.
- The thumb-nails are click-able, so that you can enlarge and see the details.
- You can download the contest entry workbook, see & play with the files.
- You can read my comments at the bottom.
- At the bottom of this post, you can find a list of key charting & dashboard design techniques. Go thru them to learn how to create similar reports at work.
Thank you
Thank you very much for all the participants in this contest. I have thoroughly enjoyed exploring your work & learned a lot from them. I am sure you had fun creating these too.
So go ahead and enjoy the entries.
PS: I am sorry if your entry is not shown on this page. We had to disqualify 22 entries due to various reasons.
KPI Dashboard by Alberto Almoguera
- Interactive with selection mechanism
- Interesting representation
- Lower charts can be replaced with sparklines / in-cell to declutter
KPI Chart by Amit Sinha
- Comparison and variance analysis
- Could use some insights – plain text instead of second chart?
KPI Chart by Ben Spalding
- Thermo-meter chart
- Feels over formatted, could have used simple colors.
KPI Chart by Chad Markel
- Interactive
- In-cell charts
- simple colors and easy to read
- May be sorting?!?
KPI Dashboard by Chetan Bhavsar
- Interactive
- Sortable
- The charts are well designed & labeled.
- Could have removed the table and kept charts (or reduced the content in table) as it is duplication.
KPI Dashboard by Francesco Petrella
- Interactive with slicers
- In-cell charts
- colorful & elegant
Become Awesome in Excel & VBA – Create dashboards like these…
- Learn how to create interactive dashboards & reports using Excel
- Develop your own macros & VBA code
- 50+ hours of video training
- Learn at your own pace
- Click here to know more
KPI Dashboard by George Gourgoulias
- Interactive with VBA / form controls
- Elegant and beautiful
- Ability to publish the report as PDF
KPI Chart by Indranil Sarkar
- Interactive
- Scrollable list to select KPIs
- Could use alignment and simpler formatting
KPI Chart by Janet
- Interactive with slicers
- Bullet charts
- Could use labels / explanation
- Also, horizontal is better
KPI Dashboard by Jiakun Zheng
- Interactive with slicers
- power pivot (XL 2010+)
- Alignment problems, poor labeling
KPI Chart by Jonathan Decker
- Interactive
- Simple colors
- The current month bar feels repetitive. Could have used a line?
KPI Dashboard by Joon Tan
- Simple charts with elegant presentation
- Ability to add commentary
KPI Chart by Karthik Ranggarajan
- Sparklines
- Elegant table design to present the information in simple way
- Good colors and layout
KPI Chart by Kaushik Joshi
- Waterfall chart
- Interactive
- Interesting representation, reduce the colors
KPI Dashboard by Keriman Hande
- Summary of key KPIs on top and drill down at bottom
- Ability to view variance or amounts
KPI Dashboard by Krishna Teja
- Interactive with VBA / form controls
- Ability to sort, drill-down to selected KPI
- Feels a bit cluttered, reduce the columns
- Could use alignment and simpler colors
KPI Chart by M.Hussain Kawosh
- Interactive
- Grouped KPIs to multiple charts
- Could use explanation, not sure how to read the charts / grouping
KPI Chart by Marie-Anne Andre
- Interactive with slicers
- Interesting design and presentation
- Reduce the control panel size and give more insights.
KPI Chart by Narayan Digambar
- Interactive
- Interesting take on the analysis – trend vs. variance
- Picture links
- Could use alignment and simpler colors
KPI Chart by Rabi Mahapatra
- Technically a data dump, but I give credit for the creative hexagonal KPI analysis.
KPI Chart by Ramananda V
- Interactive
- Compares handful of KPIs amongst each other
- Could use less formatting
KPI Dashboard by Reynaldo Peña
- Interactive with slicers
- Clear and elegant design
- Various comparisons and insights
Become Awesome in Excel & VBA – Create dashboards like these…
- Learn how to create interactive dashboards & reports using Excel
- Develop your own macros & VBA code
- 50+ hours of video training
- Learn at your own pace
- Click here to know more
KPI Chart by Ronaldo Balas
- Interactive
- Interesting design, but feels over formatted. Reduce special effects, the caps on columns feel like stacked columns and confuse.
KPI Chart by Utkarsh Shah
- Interactive
- Error in the option button selection (25 visible KPIs vs 23 buttons)
KPI Chart by Wil Davis
- Scatter plot with KPI performance
- Interesting representation
- Ability to drill down select KPI
Become Awesome in Excel & VBA – Create dashboards like these…
- Learn how to create interactive dashboards & reports using Excel
- Develop your own macros & VBA code
- 50+ hours of video training
- Learn at your own pace
- Click here to know more
Techniques used in these dashboards & charts
If you want to create these kind of charts & reports at work, I suggest reading up the Excel Dashboards & Excel Dynamic Charts pages. Also check out below links to know more about specific techniques.
- Form Controls
- Data validation
- Pivot tables
- Slicers
- Clickable Cells (VBA)
- VBA
- Formulas
- Sortable Tables
- Data bars (CF)
- Conditional Formatting
- Scrollable Tables
- Picture links
- Sparklines
How do you like these charts & dashboards? Which are your top 5?
Quite a few of these entries are really impressive. You can learn a lot by deciphering the techniques in these workbooks. Many thanks to everyone who participated. I will publish the winner names in next few days. Meanwhile, share your comments and tell me what you think. Share your top 5 entries too. 🙂
15 Responses to “A Gantt Chart Alternative – Gantt Box Chart”
That's a great idea.
Maybe the planned End Date should be highlight more.
I don't know how it would look like (nor how to do it yet), but what if instead of finishing the bold line to the best case End Date, it finishes to the realistic End Date?
The idea is ok, I think other project management tools have this, already? Maybe not.
Gantt charts in my view are about the signal most unless thing in the world, theres no way you can look at one thats more that a little complex and understand what it's telling you. I'm going to write a diatribe on project management at some point, its one of my pet areas I think!! 😉
The issue I have with this chart Chandoo, is that Tasks need to be linked to each other, so they should inherit the uncertainty, which would mean the as you moved down chart the lines would be miles apart for later tasks, and you might have to add lots of lines for subsequent tasks to cover the various outcome of it's parents.
Having said that, for the high level board summary, it's a nice way to go, it it appeals to the management 😉
thanks Chandoo, great post.
Ross
Whoooa !!! That's a very clever idea Chandoo. I really love it.
I think i'll update my gantt project sheet with that idea soon (remember my template ?)
@ross : you can link start date to the end date of the previous task in your data. The only problem I still se is to which end date (real ? planned ? best ?) in order to have average amount of information.
If best end date, you'll tend to increase uncertainty at the end of chain, although if you link to real end date, uncertainty will be decreased too much, leading in both cases to wrong management direction.
Maybe planned till the task is finished then real will do the job ?
Hey chandoo, this looks good and this would definite add value in production planning / scheduling. Uncertainity in finishing a task is very high in production scheduling and this could give an insight or a bird eye view of possible shipments we can have....
I've always been frustrated by the limitations of gantt charts. Will definitely use this, I've always struggled with how to succinctly communicate the uncertainty of certain tasks without confusing stakeholders.
I like this, I think it's a very effective way of showing how a timeline can change and which parts of a project need close attention.
@Cyril / @Ross: I would intially link the the start date to the planned end date of the previous task, with the chart updating when a task has been completed to reflect the true end date.
Or what about giving a drop-down selection box to allow the user to see the chart based on planned/best-case/worst-case end dates?
Like the idea. Have found that Excel is more flexible than MS Project for graphical solutions. The "Best Case"\"Worst Case" metrics are theoretically appealing but once the project and\or phase commences their reliability diminishes. A chart like the above that showed Planned Start, Planned End, Replan End Start, Replan End Date, Number of Replans the Start and End Dates, and Actual would provide an active, actionable view of each task\phase. It would also highlight the areas which are riskiest.
It is always amazing how flexible excel can be.
My question is how would the chart show a scenario where the date moved up? If a task is dropped or the duration of the task is significantly reduced by applying more people or machinery to the task, the dates will move up.
The gantt chart has been around for a long time, but it is still quite useful to show progress.
Cheers,
B
I like the idea but seems bit complicated in case of long projects involving numerous activity.
Also, reading and explaining is required hence not feasible where plans are just send to audience for approval.
Cheers
SY
Great idea Chandoo,
When I was reading this idea regarding delivery dates, another thought popped into my mind, how can you show the uncertainty with MONEY!!
In this case, applies to cost management or even a normal budget, you think?
Would Box Chart and Gannt Chart help to understand the best case, middle case and worst case when money is spend or planned with these three risks are involved?
I imagine that this chart could help people who write their budgets get a better understanding of risks affecting their spending.
Peter
Chandoo,
I like it. How would you display an entry once it has been completed (actual)?
Thank you,
Matt
From what you have shown so far I think that this box Gantt chart is awesome! I think that this could be an extremely useful tool.
I can't wait to learn how to make my own charts in Excel.
Will the methods that you are going to teach us work in 2003 as well?
[...] Firday, we proposed a new chart for showing project plans. I chose an ugly name for it and called it Gantt Box [...]
You need to read Eli Goldratt's Critical Chain. The uncertainty you are looking for should be accounted for in a project buffer. Not at each task level.
Further you should spend time understanding Agile Development. This would have you plan only in 1-3week iterations. This allows you to embrace changes to work not yet started, and for your customer to re-direct your course at regular intervals (after each iteration) throughout your project. keyword search: Agile Scrum
These items will show you that you are solving a tracking problem for something that you can entirely avoid!
[…] Chandoo.org’s Gantt Box Chart. […]