Chapter 4: Dashboards That Steer

CFO / Finance Leader: See the money earlier 

The CFO cares about where value is created and when cash arrives. The finance dashboard starts with a margin heatmap by client and project, making concentration and trend visible. Next is the cash pipeline: billed vs unbilled revenue, aged receivables, and a DSO trend with target bands. Two operationalize tiles complete the picture — invoice readiness and customer payment behavior — which operationalise cash conversations without finger‑pointing. A small ‘forecast confidence’ meter compares expected vs. actual to build trust. 

Project Leader: Intervene before margin walks away

The project cockpit opens with plan vs. actual effort, but the crucial element is the variance slope — the speed of drift. An approvals tile shows what is waiting and how long it has been waiting. The ‘forecasted margin at completion’ card compares today’s expectation to baseline and links to suggested actions: raise a change order, swap a resource, or resequencing tasks. Alerts are gentle but specific: a reason, an owner, a due‑by date. 

Operation / Resource Manager: Right people, right work, right time 

Operations review a 12-week utilisation outlook by role and sees the gap: too few architects available and an excess of analysts. Two steps follow: Senior architects get clear playbooks so they can guide larger mid-level teams efficiently. Sales and delivery align new work to start when analysts can be trained and deployed. The result: less firefighting as workloads crystallize , and higher billable hours without longer working days.