Thanks for your post.

You’re correct, I didn’t take the time to research Stacey Barr before posting my comments about her article on DashboardInsight.com. Honestly, I figured that there would be so many replies to her post that my voice might be lost in the crowd if I took too long. I guess that’s not the case. Also, in my critique of her post, I’m not all that sure that her background matters all that much.

After reading Stephen Few’s writeup about Stacey’s workshop, I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that she is a great performance measurement specialist. Does that make her a dashboard design expert? I don’t think so.

I will and have said, Stacey has a lot of rules for dashboard design right. The ones that she has wrong, though, are pretty important ones. When I see someone make a post giving people bad advice regarding dashboard design (use color, use Pareto charts, don’t compare A to B), I’m going to raise my voice a little and correct what I see as wrong. Let’s face it, there are many more bad dashboards in the world than good ones. Websites like dashboardinsight.com should be putting up the best information possible to help advance the art and science of dashboarding.

Lastly, before making this post, I did check out your website, http://www.dmgerbino.com/. I like your posts, particularly the one about the NYTimes’ Op-ed piece using pie charts.

Thanks for contributing to the discussion David. I hope we can stay in touch.

John C. Munoz

Great review of Stacey Barr’s blog post at DBI ( http://www.dashboardinsight.com/articles/digital-dashboards/fundamentals/7-small-business-dashboard-design-dos-and-donts.aspx ). If you had taken the time to review who Stacey Barr was a little before you did your review, you would have found out she is very passionate about performance metrics. I think that is her strength. Her data visualization skills are not on par with her metrics building skills. She works with small business owners in in Australia. I have followed her work, listened to some of her tele-seminars. I read her blog. She is very passionate about what she does, as are you.

I like the way you dissected each of the 7 rules.

I have a bit of an issue with rule 3. You are both right and wrong. Month over month data data in and of itself tells you nothing. The context that I think Stacey was writing, “like profit, revenue, cash flow, new leads, website visitors”, she is right. You said “actual to forecast, test to control” and you are right. It depends on what you are measuring and that I think we can all agree.

John, you closed your comments with, “You can find some great advice from Stephen Few’s website. He’s also published 4 excellent books about information visualization, one focusing exclusively on dashboard design.”

I wonder if Stacey Barr knows who Stephen Few? Let’s see what her website site says: “Stacey Barr is one of those rare individuals who combines exceptional professionalism with all the qualities that I look for in a friend.

Since we first met two years ago, I’ve grown to appreciate Stacey as a trusted colleague, and manage to stay in touch with her, even though half the globe separates her office in Brisbane from mine in Berkeley.

When those who attend my courses in dashboard design ask for help in learning to measure performance – something you must know how to do before you can design effective performance monitoring displays – I encourage them to consider Stacey.

If you work with her, I’m confident that you’d not only achieve great outcomes but would also enjoy the journey along the way.”

Stephen Few, author of “Information Dashboard Design”, “Now You See It” and “Show Me the Numbers”"

URL: http://www.staceybarr.com/facilitators/whosstacey.html#testimonials

Do they know each other? Yes they do. And then there is this is on Stephens site: “Stacey Barr’s Performance Management Blueprint Workshop

In my work at Perceptual Edge, I help organizations analyze their performance and present what they find in tables and graphs, which often involves dashboards. People who attend my courses in dashboard design often ask for help in figuring out how to measure the performance of their organizations. Until you know what aspects of performance to measure and how to measure them, you can’t even begin to develop a dashboard. I don’t cover this important aspect of performance management in my work, but others do, including Stacey Barr, the Performance Measurement Specialist.”

URL: http://www.perceptualedge.com/blog/?p=626

Do I have a point? Not really. But Stacey and you do, and they are good ones. I enjoyed reading them. I hope others do too.

As far as all my quoting from Stacey’s and Stephen’s web sites, I just wanted to show that they know and admire each other. We all should be so lucky.

@dmgerbino